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Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "An element is at work, very quietly, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and giving way."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Exactly what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a world whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and drinks is sipped, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less sure. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to go off in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's relative, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of leader of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is assigned to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the source of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a marketable good, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.

As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's choices and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the world. Her personal mission to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the central struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to stifle independence of thought, originality and culture: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles

The story starts with the discovery of a set of curious cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that seem to open into alternate realities. A particular window appears to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with its leader at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and return to instinct, however, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.

Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth

At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the