Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired power to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's air: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
