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Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and failing."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to find out more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.

Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm

In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as these systems always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The novel starts with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is established.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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