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

Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

His choice to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's control. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to security along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.

Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe

In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of reason, originality and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The book starts with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and experience is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

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