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Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are faltering and giving way."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.

Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her private mission to rejoin with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to open into alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is established.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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