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Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.

Like the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress independence of thinking, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The story starts with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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