Tings are unraveling 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 energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh power to expand the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems somehow to be the source of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
