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Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are faltering and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.

Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm

In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the fate of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an oppressive system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The book begins with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the structure of the world's atmosphere: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and back to instinct, however, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between purity and knowledge is established.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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