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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 manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are weakening and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world

In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The story starts with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's air: windows that appear to open into alternate realities. One such window seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is established.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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