Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, 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". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a series of unusual cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to open into different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and revert to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
