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Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and failing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, transports are caught and beverages is sipped, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh authority to broaden the institution's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The extract is viewed by some as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the fate of the world

In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in the first trilogy, her movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her individual journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The novel begins with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to intuition, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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