Field of Roses: Pullman's Thrilling Finale to the Northern Lights Series

Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling 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 authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by others as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm

In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The story begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is established.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

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