Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress independence of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the world's sky: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. One such opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
