Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to extend the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible rationalism and back to intuition, however, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
