Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's control. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a flooded 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 intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a problem to the church's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
