Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to expand the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict reason and back to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
