Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first 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 adult: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's air: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
