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Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are faltering and failing."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to go off in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a commercial product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her private quest to reunite with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, originality and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The book opens with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the