Things are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, 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 prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who saved young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. One such window manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these windows as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
