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Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and durable are weakening and collapsing."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that propels this final volume, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's final excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are caught and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his newfound influence to extend the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a marketable product, by others as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

Similar to the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply linked with the future of the world

In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the original series, her choices and her destiny are shown to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her individual quest to reconnect with her soul and recover her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian system which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell autonomy of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The novel starts with the discovery of a set of strange openings in the structure of the world's sky: portals that appear to open into other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and their value is in some way vital – 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 scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and experience is established.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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