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Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to leave in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to extend the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to quell freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The book begins with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that look to give on to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and back to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is set.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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