Field of Roses: Philip Pullman's Thrilling Finale to the Northern Lights Trilogy

Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to leave in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge 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 find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a social and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm

In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to suppress autonomy of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The book starts with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the world's sky: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

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