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Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

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

In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world. Her private quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell independence of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The story opens with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to open into other worlds. An example of a portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict logic and back to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow vital – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is set.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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