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Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

As in the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm

In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The story starts with the finding of a collection of unusual openings in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: portals that seem to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from inflexible logic and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and experience is set.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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