Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, vehicles are taken and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her private mission to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's air: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict reason and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
