Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the original series, her choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. A particular window seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
