Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's air: windows that look to open into other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
