Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, designates these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict reason and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way essential – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
