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Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of this 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 air are teeming with witches and gryphons, but below, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

His choice to depart in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, her movements and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems always have, is striving to stifle freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The book opens with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean conflict between naivety and experience is established.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the