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Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next 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 weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and failing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is drunk, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her personal journey to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the central struggle in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The book starts with the finding of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to lead to different dimensions. One such portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean conflict between innocence and knowledge is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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