Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's control. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the finding of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's air: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
