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Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are weakening and failing."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to depart in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world

In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Like His Dark Materials, her choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm. Her personal quest to reconnect with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The novel opens with the finding of a series of strange openings in the fabric of the world's air: windows that look to open into different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its head, labels these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is established.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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