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Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and collapsing."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is consumed, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.

Like the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the realm

In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that look to open into different dimensions. A particular portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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