Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a larger conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of reason, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book opens with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: portals that look to give on to other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
