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Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect 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 wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply connected with the future of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to reunite with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The novel begins with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. One such portal appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these windows as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid reason and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and their value is in some way vital – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is set.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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