Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved young the heroine to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible reason and back to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
