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Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and collapsing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound power to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial commodity, by others as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.

Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe

In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The book begins with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the church's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from strict logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is mysteriously vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is set.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

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