Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of reason, innovation and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the discovery of a set of strange cracks in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these portals as a challenge to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
