Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: portals that look to lead to other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its head, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
