Field of Roses: Pullman's Thrilling Finale to the His Dark Materials Series
Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her choices and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is set.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
