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Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered 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 the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the religion's control. A key character, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a social and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the realm

In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the central conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious fissures in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such portal seems to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and return to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between naivety and maturity is set.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the