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Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and giving way."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.

Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her path are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her private quest to reunite with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as these systems always have, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The book starts with the unveiling of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular opening seems to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict logic and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the