Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, her actions and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, originality and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a series of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
