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Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are faltering and collapsing."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are caught and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The extract is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.

As in the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm

In the previous volume, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, creativity and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the fabric of the Earth's sky: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a window seems to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution

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