Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound power to extend the church's control. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an controlling government which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
