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Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and giving way."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in creature form; where the air are teeming with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are taken and beverages is consumed, and older scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh power to extend the religion's dominium. A key character, who rescued infant the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be inseparably woven with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to stifle autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The story opens with the unveiling of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's air: windows that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a portal manifests to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a threat to the religion's doctrine and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and maturity is set.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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