Field of Roses: Philip Pullman's Gripping Conclusion to the Northern Lights Saga
Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a collection of curious cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
