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Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and tea is sipped, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world

In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell independence of thought, creativity and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The book opens with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that look to open into alternate realities. A particular opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these windows as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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