Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is drunk, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the church's control. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, originality and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel opens with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict logic and return to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
