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Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

His choice to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.

Like the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe

In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an oppressive government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The book opens with the finding of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to other worlds. An example of a portal seems to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way crucial – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth

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