Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are faltering and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world. Her private quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the finding of a series of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid logic and return to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
