Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the finding of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the Earth's air: windows that look to open into other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
