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Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in animal form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which appears in some way to be the cause of a social and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.

As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm

In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The book begins with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is established.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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