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Tings are falling apart in the last installment of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is draining from states, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of rioters. "Some force is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Just what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, Pullman's last foray into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a realm whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with witches and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the first volume, the origin story with which Pullman began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, encountering with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, procedural evil – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the role of president of the Magisterium's High Council, and is set on using his newfound power to broaden the institution's dominium. A key character, who saved infant the heroine to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable rose oil which manifests mysteriously to be the origin of a societal and economic crisis spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a scientific or esoteric phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.

Like the first series, our protagonist's deeds, and her destiny, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the realm

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. Similar to the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual journey to reunite with her soul and recover her vision becomes the central struggle in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as such authorities typically do, is seeking to stifle independence of reason, originality and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which people can be independent.

Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles

The book begins with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the much debated rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and revert to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and what they provide is in some way crucial – increases. "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 poetic tussle between naivety and experience is prepared.

Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution

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