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Things are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

His choice to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to expand the institution's control. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.

Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm

In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader war with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell autonomy of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The book starts with the finding of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

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