Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and tea is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to quell independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. One such opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
