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Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.

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

In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The story opens with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: gateways that look to open into other worlds. An example of a portal seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and knowledge is established.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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