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Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is drunk, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative evil – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his recently acquired power to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who carried infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is escalating in importance.

Like the first series, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's movements and her path are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her soul and recover her vision becomes the central conflict in a larger conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to quell independence of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: windows that look to open into alternate realities. One such opening manifests to be the point of the highly contested botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid logic and return to feeling, yet, her belief that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously vital – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical tussle between purity and knowledge is established.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the