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Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are taken and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved infant the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the universe

In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a larger war with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its head, labels these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is set.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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