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Things are unraveling in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are faltering and collapsing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are ridden and tea is consumed, and mature professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a child in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the start, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh influence to extend the religion's control. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to security along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and financial crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "highland figures" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.

Similar to the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe

In the previous volume, these storylines ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the central battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, creativity and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The novel begins with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the fabric of the planet's sky: gateways that seem to give on to other worlds. A particular window appears to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid reason and back to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow vital – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic tussle between naivety and knowledge is established.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the