Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound power to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that look to open into different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
