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Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and failing."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are teeming with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from that area. The substance is viewed by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the first trilogy, her movements and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The novel opens with the finding of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and their value is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and knowledge is set.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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