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Tings are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to go off in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by others as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.

Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm

In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The story starts with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: windows that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible reason and back to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and knowledge is established.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the