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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 manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and failing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the world

In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The novel opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such portal seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and knowledge is established.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the