#RoseField chapter 36. The last one! Just realized the audiobook file ends with a lengthy Pullman interview. There's only about 40 minutes of actual book left.
Lyra got the window big enough for Pan to jump through.
Sudden appearance of Ionedes and Leila! When did they have time to get ahead--
#RoseField chapter 35:
Lyra+Mal get back to the window, just in time for the Magisterium bomb to go off on the far side. Pan watches Olivier stab Delamare to death, because sure, why not.
The suspicions of "you're bringing an army big enough to conquer the other world" come to nothing. Not a--
#RoseField chapter 34, the last of it:
There's a genuinely sweet line where Malcolm thinks something like "accountancy books needed to be tended, as carefully as any rose garden."
And for some people, working with numbers *fulfills* their soul. You should know that, Pullman, you wrote--
#RoseField chapter 34:
Pan reveals himself to Olivier, confronts him about family connections.
Again with the disconnect. Pan says "She's your sister," not "We're your sister" or "I'm your sister."
Olivier: How did you know that?
Pan, who learned it from Olivier's daemon just last--
#RoseField chapter 33, thread 3:
More exploring the Rose World.
More of our heroes jumping to conclusions where I think "that's very plausible, but you are way too sure it's the only explanation for something you saw from a distance, when you haven't even been on this planet a full hour yet."
#RoseField chapter 33, thread 2:
As Lyra+Mal take a walk in the rose world, none of the local humans acknowledge their existence at all. Very effective creepiness! Not the full Camazotz effect, but it has some of the vibe.
Malcolm addresses a surveyor (pigeon daemon), he grunts and shoots them--
#RoseField chapter 33...is over an hour of audiobook time, so I guarantee this will fill multiple threads. Let's knock out one tonight.
The Red Building has a red tiled tool with "turned-up eaves in the Chinese style." All this time, it never occurred to me to picture it that way. But it makes--
#RoseField chapter 32, the test:
Lyra gives more detail about Will and the Subtle Knife. Says it's still in Will's world -- right, readers know he shattered it, but the window was already closed. Nobody ever told Lyra.
She mentions "an angel told us we could only travel using imagination," and--
#RoseField chapter 32:
The Great Merchant has a successor, the new Acting CEO. She's pulling the business together, she's ordering new construction projects, she's got all-new letterhead with the great man's face trademarked as a logo.
Charming Leila shows up, says she used to report to the--
#RoseField chapter 31:
Pan spying on some kind of business meeting near the station. Only partly in English. Five humans, all with their daemons so oddly quiet and uninvolved that Pan wonders if they're severed...but they're still conscious. Substitute daemons, then? Bought to play the roles?
#RoseField chapter 30:
Tilda tells Lyra about her time with Malcolm, adds, "He is younger than you." Again, this could lead us into how witch-culture has different concepts of age and maturity than normal short-lived humans, which I'm curious to hear about!...but it's only here to support--
#RoseField chapter 29:
Mrs. Polstead sent a postcard to Alice in London, saying Hannah will be in town. Fake name for Alice, misspelled name for Hannah, coded name for their meetup place. Better discretion than 90% of what we see from the professional-spy characters.
#RoseField chapter 28:
Witch-spy flies ahead of the main army, scouts out what I assume is a Magisterium squadron. They tie up a prisoner as bait for the fantasy carrion-birds we've seen a few times, wearing gas masks to avoid the stench. Nice practical detail.
Success at blowing up a few of--
#RoseField chapter 27:
Checked the actual names of the research station folks. Chen is the squatter who wants to profit, Dilyara is the ascended housekeeper who just wants to look nice, Strauss is the researcher who went to the Red Building (with the murdered man from TSC) and just got back.
#RoseField chapter 26:
Lyra: What I was missing was a sense that I belonged in the world, that it was real and and knew my place in it
Asta: Are you sure "imagination" is the right word for that?
Same hat, Asta. That doesn't sound like any of the things Pan has ever complained about Lyra--
#RoseField chapter 25:
Delamare planning his military campaign. Olivier sulking in prison.
Gryphons and witches have flown off, leaving Lyra and Mal to just stumble back down the mountain? Seems pretty ungrateful.
Some friends of Leila showed up with a better boat, gave her and Ionedes--
#RoseField chapter 24:
Malcolm with an airborne posse, off to fight the Sorcerer.
Witch: The air is full of spirits
Mal: I don't see anything?
Witch: Just gonna have to trust me, then
Mal and Lyra finally figured out they can use the resonance stones to coordinate a meetup!
#RoseField chapter 23. Start of Part 3. I have 40% of the audiobook left to go, and 1 week until it returns.
Onward.
Vignette from the ruined research station. I do like how the woman who works here (no longer officially) has gone from IDing as "a housekeeper" to "mistress of the place."
#RoseField chapter 22:
Montage of characters seeing press coverage of Delamare's speech. Hannah Relf reads about it in the Guardian. Alice, in the Daily Mirror.
Olivier is traveling again, foiled when the Great Merchant's bus company dissolves mid-ride. Very normal thing to happen to a business--
#RoseField chapter 21:
Lyra writing a report to the merchant (still doesn't know he's dead), ends up producing a lot of therapeutic journaling.
Riot in the streets, outside their hotel. Asta watching at the window, gets a lungful of tear gas. Lyra gets the window closed, thinks the dense gas--
#RoseField chapter 20 (finally!):
Delamare's big speech! And he opens by...talking warmly about how much he loved his sister. Crowd didn't see that coming, any more than the readers did.
Tells his version of Lyra's origin. Waxes poetic about how pure and devoted Marisa was, what a "sexual--
#RoseField chapter 19, thread 3.
Lyra fiercely argues to MIP that the imagination-based Connecting With Will technique is real. But she still doesn't *try* it. Doesn't even *consider* trying it.
This would be so easy to justify! A fear of "what if I'm wrong? If I don't test it, at least I can--
#RoseField chapter 19, thread 2:
Mysterious Invisible Presence ignores the question "Who are you?", just tells Lyra, "I know who you are. An angel called Xaphania told me about you." As if MIP is *not* an angel itself? (But Lyra calls it one later.)
First reference to Xaphania all trilogy?
#RoseField chapter 19:
Malcolm gets his wound treated by the witch-queen. (He thinks the bone was chipped, the bullet is still in there, and it might be infected? Buddy, if that's all true, how have you been *walking*?)
The actual treatment sequence is very good. Solid drama and pathos. I like--
#RoseField chapter 18:
Check-in with Olivier. Funny setup where he thinks of himself as like a prisoner, but the admin of the place would be thrilled if he biffed off.
Does some traditional alethiometry, reference book and all. Narration says it gives him a good idea of Lyra's journey, but--
#RoseField chapter 17, the rest:
Remember back in LBS when I worried that Pullman had gone from "critiquing religion" to "critiquing the Wrong Religion, you're still supposed to have all the same feelings, just about the Right Religion"?
This chapter is hella leaning into that.
Lyra might as--
#RoseField chapter 17:
Checking out a new guy, Horace Green, from the address book. Residence is called the Villa Victor Hugo! No indication that AU!Hugo is famous for something different, so please imagine all your fav Hugo novels with daemons in.
Lyra asks Ionedes to wait at a café next door.
#RoseField chapter 16:
Back on the bus. Lyra finally remarks "I could do with a phrasebook"! About 30 chapters late, bit she finally noticed!
Watching the spy. I swear we've seen him before, but I don't remember when, and didn't find him in a quick HDM wiki check.
Lyra flinches when he looks--
#RoseField bonus note:
A bunch of characters have mentioned "the alkahest" in various contexts. Several are searching for it, or for info about it. Not a single one has said what it *is*. Or given any indication of where/how you would try to find it.
Finally looked it up. Wikipedia says it's a--
#RoseField chapter 15:
Malcolm takes the alethiometer mechanism out of the crushed gold case, tucks it aside. Yeah, that's getting re-cased.
They're outside the enclosed stronghold when a storm comes up, and Malcolm briefly catches Pan to keep him from getting blown away. It's awkward. I like it.
