Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are caught and tea is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's control. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
