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Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less sure. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to extend the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is regarded by various factions as a commercial commodity, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm

In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an controlling regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The book begins with the unveiling of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into different dimensions. A particular opening appears to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is established.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

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