Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell freedom of reason, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the makeup of the planet's sky: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
