Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's control. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial commodity, by others as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a broader battle with an controlling regime which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the finding of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and experience is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
