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Things are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and giving way."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to leave in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.

Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm

In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, her choices and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to stifle independence of reason, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The book begins with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the world's air: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. One such window manifests to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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