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Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is draining from governments, and accumulating in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with enchantresses and gryphons, but below, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and mature academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

His choice to go off in search of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the church's High Council, and is set on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to find out more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is seen by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.

Similar to the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the universe

In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her fate are shown to be inextricably woven with the future of the realm. Her individual quest to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The book begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the structure of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to open into alternate realities. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a poetic conflict between naivety and maturity is set.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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