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Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's control. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.

Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe

In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual mission to rejoin with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The book opens with the finding of a collection of unusual cracks in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and experience is set.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

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