Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by others as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an controlling system which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a set of unusual fissures in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
