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Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by some as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.

Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world

In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The novel starts with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to open into different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid reason and back to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth

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