Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
