Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, 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 the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved young Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to suppress independence of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the structure of the world's air: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
