Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried infant Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
