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Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were firm and strong are deteriorating and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who carried young Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from the region. The substance is viewed by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or esoteric wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.

Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are shown to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key battleground in a broader war with an authoritarian regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to suppress autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The book begins with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that look to lead to different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, labels these windows as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean tussle between innocence and maturity is established.

Story Tempo and Character Development

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