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Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are weakening and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's last excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound power to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.

As in the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The novel starts with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the planet's sky: gateways that appear to give on to alternate realities. A particular portal appears to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between purity and experience is set.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

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