Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the institution's control. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the planet's sky: gateways that look to give on to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the church's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict reason and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
