Rose Field Chronicles: Philip Pullman's Thrilling Ending to the Northern Lights Trilogy

Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are weakening and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds 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 joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, 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 the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to security along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.

Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The story opens with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that look to open into alternate realities. One such portal appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and knowledge is established.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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