Rose Field Chronicles: Pullman's Thrilling Ending to the His Dark Materials Series

Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe 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 diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound authority to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.

Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world

In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a larger battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The book opens with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the fabric of the Earth's air: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. One such portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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