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Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but below, transports are caught and drinks is drunk, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This restraint is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, procedural wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the authority's High Council, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who saved young Lyra to security along a flooded river as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and if it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.

Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are shown to be deeply linked with the fate of the universe

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the destiny of the realm. Her private journey to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a broader battle with an oppressive system which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to quell independence of thought, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of unusual cracks in the makeup of the planet's air: portals that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, labels these openings as a problem to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid logic and return to feeling, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their significance and what they offer is somehow essential – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is set.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

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