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Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are faltering and giving way."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child 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 the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and persistent heroine of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to depart in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable good, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the realm

In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, originality and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The story starts with the discovery of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. One such window seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these portals as a problem to the church's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between purity and experience is established.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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