Rose Field Chronicles: Pullman's Gripping Conclusion to the His Dark Materials Saga

Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm

In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The novel starts with the discovery of a series of strange cracks in the structure of the Earth's sky: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

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