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Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm

In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, her actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle independence of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The story begins with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's sky: gateways that look to give on to alternate realities. One such window seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible logic and back to intuition, however, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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