Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to expand the church's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, originality and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's air: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. One such opening manifests to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
