The Rose Field: Pullman's Thrilling Ending to the His Dark Materials Trilogy
Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh power to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's air: windows that look to give on to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
