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Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are faltering and failing."

The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path

Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, buses are ridden and tea is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to depart in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The book starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict reason and back to intuition, yet, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is set.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the