Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a commercial product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the future of the realm
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that look to lead to other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and return to instinct, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
