The Rose Field: Philip Pullman's Thrilling Conclusion to the His Dark Materials Saga

Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh power to broaden the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.

Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the fate of the world

In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her path are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The book starts with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and knowledge is established.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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