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Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and failing."

The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that force 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, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to leave in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who carried infant the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.

Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the fate of the world

In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the original series, her movements and her fate are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of reason, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The story begins with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the world's air: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and return to intuition, yet, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between innocence and maturity is set.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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