The Rose Field: Pullman's Gripping Ending to the His Dark Materials Saga

Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by others as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.

Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that look to lead to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, yet, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is established.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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