Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, her choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. One such window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible logic and return to intuition, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
