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Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are caught and drinks is consumed, and older scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of The Secret Commonwealth, 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, deeper currents were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a commercial product, by others as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the universe

In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her path are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the world. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is seeking to suppress freedom of reason, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The book starts with the discovery of a set of unusual fissures in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: windows that seem to give on to different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its helm, labels these openings as a threat to the church's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and back to feeling, yet, her belief that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is set.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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