Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply connected with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's air: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
