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Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to leave in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to extend the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.

As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, her movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to reunite with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of reason, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The story begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is established.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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