Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid logic and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
