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Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along novel 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 flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey

Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating realm he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape corresponds to that of this world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, souls in creature form; where the air are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are taken and drinks is drunk, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more cautious, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

Pan's decision to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an quality which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a secondary role in espionage: he is sent to the city to find out more about Delamare's aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and precious rose oil which appears in some way to be the source of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by some as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is becoming urgent.

As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the realm

In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they converge. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her fate are revealed to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her individual mission to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a broader war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to quell autonomy of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The novel starts with the discovery of a collection of curious cracks in the fabric of the planet's sky: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. An example of a window manifests to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the church's beliefs and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these locations must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a poetic struggle between purity and knowledge is prepared.

Narrative Pacing and Character Development

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