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Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to expand the church's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to security along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.

As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The novel starts with the discovery of a set of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that seem to give on to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is prepared.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the