Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thought, originality and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: windows that look to lead to other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between purity and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
