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Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are faltering and failing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to leave in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the church's rule. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.

Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm

In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an controlling system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The story begins with the discovery of a set of unusual cracks in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between purity and maturity is established.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

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