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Things are unraveling in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and failing."

The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path

Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is drunk, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to expand the institution's control. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.

Like the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, her movements and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The book begins with the unveiling of a set of curious openings in the fabric of the world's sky: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between purity and experience is established.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

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