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Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is regarded by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.

Like the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world

In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The story begins with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these windows as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is set.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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