Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. 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 joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the fabric of the world's air: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict reason and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
