Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private mission to rejoin with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems always have, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
