Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and recover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's air: windows that look to open into other worlds. One such portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible reason and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
