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Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world

In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The story starts with the discovery of a series of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth

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