Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
