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Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and collapsing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the future of the realm

In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The book opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is set.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the