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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 realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to expand the institution's rule. A key character, who carried young the heroine to safety along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in espionage: he is assigned to the city to discover more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from the region. The oil is viewed by some as a commercial product, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

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

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her private journey to reunite with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger conflict with an controlling system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The story opens with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. One such portal manifests to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between naivety and knowledge is set.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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