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Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing 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 draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are faltering and failing."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but older, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.

Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her individual mission to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The story begins with the finding of a series of curious openings in the fabric of the planet's air: portals that appear to open into other worlds. One such opening seems to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible reason and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between naivety and experience is established.

Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth

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