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Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but below, buses are taken and beverages is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.

Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the universe

In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the Earth's air: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid reason and back to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and experience is set.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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