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Things are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are faltering and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who faults her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.

Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably linked with the fate of the universe

In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The novel opens with the unveiling of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: gateways that look to lead to other worlds. A particular portal appears to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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