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Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and persistent heroine of the prior volumes, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his recently acquired influence to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is seen by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a scientific or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

Like His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the universe

In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to the original series, her actions and her fate are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a broader conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, originality and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The book starts with the finding of a series of curious cracks in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: portals that look to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to intuition, however, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and experience is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the