Things are falling apart in the last installment 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 intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an controlling government which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
