Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
