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Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are faltering and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by others as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world

In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her fate are shown to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to quell freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The story begins with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and knowledge is set.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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