Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, warier, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery 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 seen by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Similar to the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to reunite with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's sky: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid reason and back to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
