Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are caught and tea is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by others as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The story starts with the discovery of a series of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's sky: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict reason and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
