Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the finding of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the world's air: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
