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Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by various factions as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The book starts with the unveiling of a series of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is established.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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