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Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world

In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world. Her individual mission to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that look to give on to other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is set.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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