The Rose Field: Pullman's Thrilling Conclusion to the His Dark Materials Trilogy

Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

His choice to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the realm

In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell independence of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The story starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: portals that appear to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between purity and maturity is set.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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