Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in search of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably connected with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story starts with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's air: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a portal manifests to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
