Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a broader war with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the finding of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid reason and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
