Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's control. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm. Her private journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange openings in the structure of the world's sky: windows that appear to open into alternate realities. One such portal appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
