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Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and drinks is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's choices and her path are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to suppress freedom of thinking, creativity and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The book begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that seem to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is prepared.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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