Field of Roses: Philip Pullman's Thrilling Conclusion to the His Dark Materials Trilogy

Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are weakening and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's control. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm

In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her path are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader war with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The story begins with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way crucial – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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