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Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and gathering in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are faltering and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's final foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in animal form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are taken and beverages is drunk, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound influence to broaden the church's control. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to security along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and economic upheaval spreading out from that area. The oil is viewed by various factions as a commercial product, by others as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

As in His Dark Materials, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the fate of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, her choices and her path are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to rejoin with her soul and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling government which, as such authorities often attempt, is attempting to stifle independence of thought, innovation and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be free.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The novel opens with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular portal seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these portals as a problem to the church's beliefs and sets out to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible reason and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her conviction that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is in some way vital – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic conflict between naivety and experience is set.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

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