Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh power to broaden the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a broader battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a set of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
