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Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."

The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh authority to extend the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.

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

In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her private mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the planet's sky: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. A particular opening seems to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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