Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
