Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the church's control. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the structure of the world's sky: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, 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 rigid logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
