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Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to depart in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved infant Lyra to security along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.

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

In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling government which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is set.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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