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Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to expand the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm

In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The novel opens with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. One such portal manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid reason and back to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between purity and knowledge is established.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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