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Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The story opens with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is established.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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