Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's control. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the structure of the Earth's air: portals that appear to give on to alternate realities. One such window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way essential – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
