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Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are weakening and giving way."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe

In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The story begins with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid reason and back to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

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