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Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried infant Lyra to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be deeply connected with the future of the universe

In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The story starts with the finding of a series of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's sky: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between naivety and experience is established.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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