The Rose Field: Philip Pullman's Gripping Ending to the Northern Lights Saga

Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The story starts with the finding of a series of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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