Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, transports are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes 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, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell independence of reason, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: portals that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
