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Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The book opens with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. An example of a portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

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