Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and recover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a series of unusual cracks in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that appear to open into other worlds. One such window manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
