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Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to extend the religion's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young Lyra to safety along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the fate of the universe

In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reunite with her soul and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to quell independence of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the world's air: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way essential – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and maturity is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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