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Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is draining from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in creature form; where the air are filled with witches and gryphons, but below, buses are ridden and beverages is sipped, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and determined heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is heightened by her split from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that innocent part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to a key location to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly botanical extract which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

As in the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm

In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the first trilogy, her movements and her path are shown to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an controlling government which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The story opens with the unveiling of a series of strange cracks in the makeup of the world's air: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its head, labels these openings as a challenge to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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