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Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and giving way."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Exactly what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.

Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe

In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The novel begins with the finding of a collection of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict reason and return to feeling, however, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is set.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

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