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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 seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and collapsing."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to leave in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's control. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm

In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The story starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and return to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and maturity is set.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the