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Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and drinks is consumed, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to leave in search of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh power to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by some as a marketable product, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

Like the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe

In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's choices and her fate are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to quell independence of thought, creativity and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The story begins with the unveiling of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the world's sky: portals that seem to lead to different dimensions. One such portal manifests to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid reason and revert to instinct, however, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and their value is somehow crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and experience is established.

Story Tempo and Character Development

At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the