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Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are faltering and failing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh influence to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm

In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The novel starts with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's air: portals that look to open into alternate realities. One such window appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to feeling, yet, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and knowledge is set.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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