Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The substance is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, her movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to open into different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
