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Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and drinks is sipped, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

As in the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe

In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The book starts with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and maturity is set.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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