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Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems in some way to be the source of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.

Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the universe

In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, her choices and her path are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle independence of reason, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The book opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: portals that look to give on to different dimensions. One such window appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and maturity is set.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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