Field of Roses: Pullman's Thrilling Finale to the His Dark Materials Series
Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh influence to extend the institution's control. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the key conflict in a broader war with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that look to open into other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid reason and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
