Field of Roses: Pullman's Nail-Biting Finale to the Northern Lights Series

Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the world

In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is set.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

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