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Tings are unraveling in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of Philip Pullman's grand trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, gradually", says merchant a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are faltering and giving way."

Core Enigma and Her Quest

Just what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape maps on to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and think and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

Pan's decision to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in espionage: he is sent to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable botanical extract which manifests mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from that area. The substance is seen by certain groups as a commercial good, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is escalating in importance.

As in His Dark Materials, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the future of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they merge. Like the original series, the protagonist's actions and her path are unveiled to be deeply entwined with the fate of the world. Her private quest to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell independence of thought, innovation and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The story begins with the unveiling of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: portals that look to give on to other worlds. One such portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The church, with Delamare at its head, labels these portals as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict logic and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow vital – increases. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean tussle between naivety and knowledge is set.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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