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Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but below, transports are taken and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

His choice to go off in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to extend the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.

Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the future of the world

In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the first trilogy, her actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her private journey to reunite with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to quell autonomy of thought, originality and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The novel begins with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's sky: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible logic and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and maturity is established.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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