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Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and failing."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, Pullman's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are taken and tea is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh power to extend the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to find out more about his plans. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a social and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.

Like the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe

In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe. Her private mission to rejoin with her daemon and recover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The book begins with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's air: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. One such opening seems to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is in some way essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

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