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Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and failing."

The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path

Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh influence to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the source of a social and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe

In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her path are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of thought, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The book starts with the discovery of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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