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Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and collapsing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first introduced three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The story opens with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. An example of a window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible reason and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is set.

Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth

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