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Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are faltering and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the world

In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private quest to reunite with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of thinking, creativity and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular window appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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