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Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, her choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader war with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, innovation and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The novel begins with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the Earth's sky: windows that seem to lead to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a problem to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict reason and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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