Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and tea is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods 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 introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, designates these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
