Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting 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 draining from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's dominium. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems in some way to be the source of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to reunite with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into alternate realities. One such portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
