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Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's rule. A key character, who carried infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe

In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The story opens with the finding of a series of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: portals that look to open into alternate realities. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to intuition, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is established.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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