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Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and failing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to security along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.

Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe

In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her path are shown to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her private mission to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider battle with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress independence of reason, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The story opens with the unveiling of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a portal seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and return to instinct, however, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic struggle between innocence and maturity is established.

Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth

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