Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell independence of reason, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a set of curious openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
