Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her private journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to quell independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the finding of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to alternate realities. One such window appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its head, labels these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
