Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and beverages is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's control. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a commercial product, by others as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, creativity and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
