Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these portals as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to instinct, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
