Things are unraveling 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 charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, her movements and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to open into alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is in some way essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
