Field of Roses: Philip Pullman's Gripping Ending to the Northern Lights Series

Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release 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 act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to extend the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.

As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world

In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The novel starts with the discovery of a set of strange fissures in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

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