The Rose Field: Philip Pullman's Thrilling Finale to the His Dark Materials Series

Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and tea is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to extend the church's control. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world

In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central battleground in a larger war with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The novel starts with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is established.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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