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Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were firm and durable are weakening and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, souls in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and drinks is drunk, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the prior volumes, but older, sadder, more careful, less sure. This restraint is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to learn more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which seems in some way to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual phenomenon, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably connected with the fate of the realm

In its predecessor, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, her choices and her fate are unveiled to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a broader battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle autonomy of thinking, creativity and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts

The book starts with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and return to instinct, yet, her belief that these places must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously essential – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is set.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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