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Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. An example of a portal appears to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between naivety and experience is set.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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