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Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

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

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, her choices and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The book starts with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that look to lead to alternate realities. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical conflict between purity and maturity is established.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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