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Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her daemon, 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 go off in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by various factions as a marketable product, by others as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe

In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The novel begins with the finding of a series of strange openings in the structure of the world's air: portals that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular window seems to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is established.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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