Rose Field Chronicles: Pullman's Nail-Biting Conclusion to the His Dark Materials Trilogy

Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and failing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh power to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to security along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; 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 His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world

In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to quell independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The novel begins with the finding of a set of curious openings in the structure of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. One such window seems to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth

At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the