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Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the skies are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to expand the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.

Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, innovation and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that look to open into alternate realities. A particular window seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these windows as a problem to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is set.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the