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Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh influence to expand the church's control. A key character, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe

In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm. Her personal journey to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to suppress autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The book starts with the finding of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the world's air: portals that look to give on to other worlds. One such opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, labels these portals as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict logic and back to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and knowledge is established.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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