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Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced in the distant past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's governing authority, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to security along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.

Like the first series, our protagonist's decisions, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the destiny of the realm

In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal quest to rejoin with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the central battleground in a wider conflict with an controlling system which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The book begins with the discovery of a series of curious cracks in the makeup of the Earth's air: windows that seem to give on to alternate realities. A particular window manifests to be the point of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict reason and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the