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Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are failing, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and giving way."

Key Puzzle and Her Quest

Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates this final volume, which picks up where its predecessor ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography corresponds to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in animal form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and older professors carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the introductory book with which Pullman began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the prickly and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

Pan's decision to go off in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who faults her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the role of head of the authority's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to expand the institution's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued infant the heroine to security along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by some as a marketable good, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

As in the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably linked with the destiny of the universe

In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an controlling regime which, as such regimes always have, is striving to stifle freedom of reason, innovation and culture: all the internal, rebellious ways in which humans can be independent.

Cosmic Openings and Philosophical Struggles

The novel starts with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the makeup of the planet's air: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. A particular opening seems to be the point of the highly contested mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's doctrine and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid logic and back to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be preserved – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical tussle between naivety and knowledge is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Character Development

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