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Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is drunk, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh authority to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried baby the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the central struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The book starts with the finding of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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