Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. One such portal appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these portals as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict reason and back to instinct, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic conflict between naivety and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
