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Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and tea is consumed, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from the region. The substance is seen by some as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.

Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world

In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress independence of reason, originality and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The story begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: windows that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a portal seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and experience is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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