Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something 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. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book begins with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that look to open into alternate realities. One such portal appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the