Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her individual mission to rejoin with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: windows that seem to give on to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid reason and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
