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Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are weakening and failing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to learn more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a commercial product, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world

In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, her actions and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the key battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The book starts with the discovery of a set of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and maturity is established.

Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth

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