Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the finding of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that look to lead to other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and return to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
