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Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who carried young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and financial crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.

Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world

In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the original series, Lyra's choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress independence of reason, originality and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The book starts with the discovery of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's air: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible reason and back to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and their value is in some way crucial – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is established.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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