Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the finding of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
