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Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new 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". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.

Similar to the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm

In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her individual quest to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The story begins with the unveiling of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. One such window seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is set.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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