Field of Roses: Philip Pullman's Nail-Biting Finale to the Northern Lights Saga

Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The book begins with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the