Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and recover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
