Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, her movements and her path are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the makeup of the Earth's air: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict reason and revert to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
