Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's control. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
