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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 universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but underneath, buses are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

As in the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between innocence and experience is established.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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