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Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old 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 Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.

As in the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the universe

In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The story starts with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the structure of the planet's air: portals that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic struggle between innocence and maturity is set.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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