Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened 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.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the church's rule. A key character, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid reason and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
