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Things are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private quest to reunite with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The book starts with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's air: portals that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way vital – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is set.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

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