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Tings are falling apart in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are weakening and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first introduced 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, vehicles are caught and tea is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound authority to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried young Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about his aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears in some way to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from that area. The extract is regarded by various factions as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.

Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe

In its predecessor, these storylines ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they come together. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's movements and her path are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian government which, as such authorities always have, is striving to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The novel begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the Earth's air: portals that look to open into different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid reason and return to instinct, however, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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