Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, her movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems always have, is seeking to suppress independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the planet's sky: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
