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Things are unraveling in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are deteriorating and giving way."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the cause of a social and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world

In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are shown to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her individual journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to stifle independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The book opens with the unveiling of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. One such portal appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, labels these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to intuition, however, her belief that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and maturity is set.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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