Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to reunite with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell freedom of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and back to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously essential – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
