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

Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and failing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.

Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her soul and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider war with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The book opens with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the planet's air: windows that look to open into different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid logic and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is set.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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