Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to suppress independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's sky: portals that look to give on to other worlds. One such opening seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
