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Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the source of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.

As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm

In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, her actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her personal quest to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems always have, is seeking to quell independence of reason, innovation and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to different dimensions. One such portal appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and experience is established.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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