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Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from governments, and pooling in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of business empires, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader 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 weakening and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Precisely what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that propels this final volume, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting realm he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, sadder, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to leave in quest of that childlike part of her which she appears to have shed (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent 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 religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's family member, who faults her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to extend the religion's control. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from that area. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable product, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.

As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the universe

In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes always have, is attempting to quell autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The novel begins with the finding of a series of strange openings in the makeup of the world's atmosphere: portals that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from strict logic and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is in some way essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a philosophical conflict between innocence and knowledge is set.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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