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Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are faltering and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to depart in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.

Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm

In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle independence of reason, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The book starts with the unveiling of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to open into other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is set.

Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth

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