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Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who saved young Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, creativity and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The novel begins with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. A particular window appears to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and back to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and experience is set.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

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