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Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.

Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of thinking, originality and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The story begins with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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