Things are unraveling 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 charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and tea is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who carried young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a set of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to open into other worlds. A particular window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
