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Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.

As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The story opens with the finding of a set of strange cracks in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. One such portal seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and experience is prepared.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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