Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell independence of thought, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal seems to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
