Things are unraveling in the final volume 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 skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to extend the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to security along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that seem to lead to other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
