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Tings are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the church's rule. A key character, who saved young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that seem to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the