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Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait 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 adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.

As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe

In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The novel starts with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible reason and revert to instinct, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is set.

Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the