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Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and failing."

The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates this final volume, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, her actions and her fate are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the world's air: portals that seem to open into alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is established.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the