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Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The novel begins with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and maturity is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth

At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the