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Tings are collapsing in the last installment of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the fate of the world. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to intuition, however, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is set.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the