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Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and determined main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more careful, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

His choice to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who carried infant the heroine to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is viewed by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or esoteric miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to stifle autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The book begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: portals that look to give on to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and experience is set.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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