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Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are taken and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a commercial product, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her personal quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The book starts with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's air: windows that look to give on to other worlds. One such window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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