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Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the heavens are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the authority's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.

Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the original series, her actions and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The book opens with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that seem to open into alternate realities. One such portal appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible rationalism and return to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the