Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release 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 people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, her actions and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle independence of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the finding of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its head, labels these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
