Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest 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 reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who saved young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, her actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. One such window appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
