The Rose Field: Pullman's Nail-Biting Finale to the His Dark Materials Saga

Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and collapsing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, warier, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that look to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the