Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the church's control. A key character, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a broader war with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book starts with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's air: portals that look to open into other worlds. One such opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, 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 tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
