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Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh power to expand the institution's control. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.

Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key battleground in a wider conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell independence of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The novel opens with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is established.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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