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Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, Pullman's final foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to expand the religion's control. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader battle with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thought, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The book begins with the finding of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's air: gateways that seem to open into alternate realities. One such window appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these openings as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from strict reason and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the