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Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing 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". Authority is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to go off in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative evil – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe

In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to quell freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts

The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. One such window appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is set.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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