Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to expand the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her individual quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to open into alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and return to intuition, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between naivety and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
