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Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to depart in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his fresh power to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the world

In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, her actions and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an controlling regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of thought, originality and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The story starts with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is set.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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