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Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and failing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.

As in the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The novel starts with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's sky: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and knowledge is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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