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Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and failing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to security along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.

As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm

In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of reason, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The book begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window seems to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible logic and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

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