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Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to expand the religion's control. A key character, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.

Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the world's air: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid logic and revert to intuition, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is set.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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