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Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the realm

In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The book opens with the finding of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a portal manifests to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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