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Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An hidden 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 religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, silently, gradually", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are weakening and failing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels this final volume, which continues where the previous book concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose geography aligns with that of our world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is dispatched to a key location to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance spreading out from that area. The extract is seen by certain groups as a tradeable good, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.

Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm

In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they merge. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her path are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm. Her private mission to reconnect with her soul and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an oppressive system which, as these systems often attempt, is attempting to quell independence of reason, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The story starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: windows that seem to open into other worlds. One such portal seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its helm, designates these portals as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid reason and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these sites must be protected – that their significance and their value is somehow crucial – grows. "Dust, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is set.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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