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Things are collapsing in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, more doubtful. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, administrative malice – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to discover more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a social and economic crisis spreading out from that area. The oil is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

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

In the previous volume, these narratives ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a wider conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The book opens with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to open into other worlds. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, however, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is in some way vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic tussle between naivety and maturity is set.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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