Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's control. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is in some way crucial – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
