Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound power to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader war with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book opens with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. A particular window appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to feeling, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
