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Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and tea is drunk, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to expand the institution's control. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the universe

In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The book starts with the finding of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. A particular portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is set.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the