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Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are faltering and giving way."

The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, buses are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the sharp and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to security along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by various factions as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world

In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The novel starts with the discovery of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. One such window seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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