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Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to rejoin with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to quell independence of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The story begins with the finding of a series of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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