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Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and failing."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to go off in search of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. Like the original series, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell independence of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The story starts with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the Earth's air: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and maturity is established.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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