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Things are falling apart in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's dominium. A key character, who carried young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which appears in some way to be the source of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The book begins with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the structure of the world's air: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular portal manifests to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a threat to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and maturity is established.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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