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Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the hands of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and failing."

The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor concluded. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are populated with witches and legendary creatures, but below, vehicles are ridden and drinks is sipped, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her split from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his newfound power to expand the institution's dominium. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and valuable rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and economic crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is seen by some as a commercial good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.

Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world

In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in side by side. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her destiny are revealed to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key battleground in a larger war with an oppressive regime which, as such regimes typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and culture: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The story begins with the discovery of a set of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's air: windows that look to lead to different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, classifies these openings as a challenge to the institution's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." 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