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Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are weakening and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are ridden and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's dominium. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the universe

In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The book opens with the discovery of a set of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that look to open into other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and knowledge is established.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the