Rose Field Chronicles: Philip Pullman's Gripping Conclusion to the His Dark Materials Trilogy

Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.

Similar to the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world

In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and recover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular window seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is established.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

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