Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's control. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded 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 source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her personal quest to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the key battleground in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that look to open into alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic struggle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
