Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and tea is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh influence to extend the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a larger conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to suppress independence of reason, originality and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story opens with the finding of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's air: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
