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Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are weakening and collapsing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, transports are caught and tea is drunk, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to extend the church's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a marketable good, by alternate groups as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.

Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the world

In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Like the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of thinking, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's sky: portals that seem to open into alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these portals as a threat to the institution's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between innocence and maturity is established.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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