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Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are faltering and giving way."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.

Similar to the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably connected with the future of the world

In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress independence of thinking, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The story begins with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the structure of the world's air: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. An example of a portal seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and revert to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is set.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

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