Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
