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Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and failing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh power to extend the church's control. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the realm

In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, her actions and her path are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The story opens with the finding of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that appear to open into alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and back to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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