Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an oppressive government which, as these systems always have, is striving to quell freedom of thought, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
