Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's control. A key character, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the discovery of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that seem to open into other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
