Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, 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 merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and tea is sipped, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of thought, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
