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Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who saved young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the future of the world

In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle independence of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The novel starts with the finding of a set of unusual cracks in the structure of the world's sky: windows that look to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is set.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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