Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a marketable good, by others as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, her actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell freedom of thought, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's air: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic conflict between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
