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Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the church's rule. A key character, who saved young Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.

Similar to the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The book begins with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such portal appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and knowledge is established.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the