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Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and pooling in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are deteriorating and failing."

Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path

Precisely what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that drives the concluding book, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, transports are caught and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the sharp and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired power to extend the church's control. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to security along a swollen river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to learn more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is coming rapidly to the fore.

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

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in His Dark Materials, her movements and her fate are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key conflict in a wider battle with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the personal, resistant ways in which individuals can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of strange cracks in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a portal manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The church, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is mysteriously crucial – increases. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and knowledge is established.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

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