Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, her actions and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to quell independence of thought, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the structure of the Earth's air: windows that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
