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Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."

The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path

Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in animal form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, vehicles are taken and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to go off in search of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to broaden the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is becoming urgent.

Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The book starts with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: gateways that appear to open into other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, classifies these windows as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to intuition, however, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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