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Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and failing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the future of the universe

In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her individual quest to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader war with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to quell freedom of reason, creativity and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The story begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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