Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
