Tings are unraveling in the last installment 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 energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, her movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reunite with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to quell freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the world's air: gateways that look to open into different dimensions. A particular opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a problem to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
