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Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.

Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm

In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The book begins with the discovery of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and revert to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is set.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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