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Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are faltering and failing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by some as a marketable product, by others as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.

Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe

In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the realm. Her individual mission to rejoin with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The story begins with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the structure of the planet's air: windows that seem to lead to other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is set.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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