Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
