Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the structure of the world's air: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
