Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
Pan's decision to leave in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle independence of reason, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story opens with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict reason and revert to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
