Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the world's air: portals that look to open into alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible reason and back to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
