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Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."

The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, 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 role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh influence to extend the church's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to a key location to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears somehow to be the source of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm

In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The novel starts with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to other worlds. One such window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible rationalism and back to feeling, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is set.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

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