Rose Field Chronicles: Pullman's Thrilling Finale to the His Dark Materials Trilogy

Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to quell freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The novel begins with the finding of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is set.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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