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Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking 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 treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who carried young the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.

As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the world

In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her fate are unveiled to be deeply woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the primary conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as such regimes often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The book begins with the finding of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that seem to open into alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to move from rigid reason and revert to feeling, yet, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean conflict between innocence and knowledge is set.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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