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Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are weakening and collapsing."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to go off in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the world

In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's air: gateways that look to give on to other worlds. A particular window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and revert to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the