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Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and failing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and reason and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is consumed, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her split from her animal guide, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound power to broaden the church's control. A key character, who rescued baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial commodity, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in tandem. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the destiny of the world. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an controlling government which, as such regimes often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles

The story begins with the finding of a series of strange openings in the structure of the Earth's air: portals that look to open into alternate realities. One such window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these portals as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be protected – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a poetic tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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