Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of thought, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between purity and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
