Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the finding of a series of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such window seems to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
