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Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in beast form; where the air are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.

Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the fate of the world

In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as these systems always have, is seeking to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The story opens with the finding of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: portals that seem to open into different dimensions. One such window seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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