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Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the realm

In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to reunite with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The book starts with the discovery of a series of unusual cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the