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Tings are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider war with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of reason, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: portals that look to open into alternate realities. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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