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Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are faltering and collapsing."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are caught and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to security along a swollen river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.

Similar to the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the world

In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The story starts with the finding of a collection of strange cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into alternate realities. An example of a portal appears to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible reason and return to feeling, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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