Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to security along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
