Rose Field Chronicles: Philip Pullman's Gripping Finale to the His Dark Materials Trilogy

Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The novel opens with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and maturity is established.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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