Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted 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"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, her movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a portal seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
