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Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is drunk, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and determined heroine of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a tradeable good, by others as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.

Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the world

In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her choices and her path are unveiled to be deeply woven with the future of the world. Her individual mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a wider battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is seeking to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The story begins with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the Earth's air: windows that appear to open into alternate realities. An example of a portal seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, labels these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible logic and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and their value is somehow vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

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