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Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen 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 states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in animal form; where the heavens are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling representation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who saved young the heroine to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

As in the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm

In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. As in the original series, the protagonist's choices and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle independence of reason, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The book starts with the finding of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's air: windows that appear to open into alternate realities. A particular portal seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between purity and experience is set.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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