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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 realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh power to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.

As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The book begins with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that look to lead to different dimensions. One such portal seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict logic and return to intuition, yet, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is set.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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