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, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by certain groups as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, 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 the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her path are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that appear to open into other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and back to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
