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Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.

As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The story opens with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict reason and return to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and experience is set.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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