Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and tea is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to go off in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's control. A key character, who carried young the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by certain groups as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her private quest to reunite with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. One such window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
