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Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and failing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and tea is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.

Like the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the world

In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, creativity and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The book opens with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and experience is prepared.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

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