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

Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are weakening and failing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about his aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm

In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, originality and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is established.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the