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Things are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and durable are faltering and giving way."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's last foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced three decades past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still clearly the spiky and tenacious main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to depart in search of that childlike part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of strict, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is determined on using his fresh influence to expand the church's control. A key character, who carried young Lyra to safety along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a empirical or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.

Similar to the first series, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the future of the world

In the previous volume, these plots ran largely in side by side. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are shown to be deeply linked with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the primary struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive government which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress autonomy of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.

Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles

The story opens with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the structure of the world's air: windows that appear to give on to different dimensions. One such window manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its head, classifies these portals as a problem to the institution's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, yet, her belief that these sites must be defended – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "Cosmic particles, 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 Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is established.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the