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Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and failing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and drinks is drunk, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by certain groups as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.

Like the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the world

In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The book begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. A particular opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, labels these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and return to feeling, however, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is established.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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