Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
