Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and tea is drunk, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her path are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader war with an controlling government which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that look to open into different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and revert to instinct, yet, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
