Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to security along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a social and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. One such portal appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
