Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation 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 depart in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's control. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid logic and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
