Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell independence of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
