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Things are collapsing in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Things we thought were secure and durable are weakening and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first unveiled in the distant past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but aged, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with wonder and peril 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 Pullman's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to expand the church's dominium. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by others as a empirical or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, its significance, and if it should be removed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

Similar to the first series, Lyra's actions, and her future, are revealed to be deeply linked with the destiny of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her fate are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the fate of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary conflict in a wider battle with an oppressive government which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to quell freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The story begins with the unveiling of a series of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, labels these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid reason and revert to intuition, however, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and their value is somehow essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between innocence and maturity is prepared.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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