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Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and giving way."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that drives this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are populated with witches and gryphons, but below, vehicles are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the role of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his newfound influence to expand the church's control. Another protagonist, who carried baby Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or mystical miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or protected is escalating in importance.

As in the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the future of the realm

In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her movements and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the future of the realm. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader war with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities always have, is striving to stifle independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The book starts with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the structure of the world's sky: gateways that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from inflexible logic and return to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is in some way crucial – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and knowledge is established.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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