Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to suppress autonomy of thought, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and back to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
