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 appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and tea is drunk, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh influence to expand the church's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the finding of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. One such window seems to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, designates these windows as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
