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Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and giving way."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to go off in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.

Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to rejoin with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The book opens with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid reason and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

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