Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader war with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a portal appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these portals as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid logic and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
