Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who saved young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story opens with the finding of a series of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and return to instinct, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
