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Tings are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to security along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by some as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm

In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her personal quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the world's atmosphere: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth

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