Rose Field Chronicles: Pullman's Nail-Biting Ending to the His Dark Materials Saga

Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.

Like the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe

In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, originality and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The story opens with the discovery of a series of unusual openings in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict reason and back to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is prepared.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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