Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's control. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a larger conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The story opens with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the structure of the planet's air: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. A particular portal seems to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
