Field of Roses: Pullman's Thrilling Conclusion to the His Dark Materials Trilogy
Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
