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Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says trader a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are weakening and collapsing."

Key Puzzle and The Protagonist's Path

Just what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last foray into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and determined main character of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Merging Narratives

His choice to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "vision"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the faith's controlling power, and Pullman's masterfully eerie incarnation of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to expand the church's rule. A key character, who saved young the heroine to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval rippling out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a tradeable product, by others as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.

Similar to the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, her actions and her path are unveiled to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her daemon and recover her vision becomes the central battleground in a wider war with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to suppress autonomy of reason, creativity and art: all the internal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. A particular window manifests to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, classifies these openings as a problem to the religion's beliefs 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 preserved – that their significance and what they offer is somehow crucial – strengthens. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and experience is established.

Plot Rhythm and Protagonist Growth

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