Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are caught and tea is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress freedom of reason, originality and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
