Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable good, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to rejoin with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a wider war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, innovation and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel starts with the finding of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
