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Tings are falling apart in the final volume of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along new and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first unveiled three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of this world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

His choice to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and Pullman's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his recently acquired authority to expand the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to security along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to Geneva to discover more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is seen by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a empirical or spiritual phenomenon, and by others still – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.

Like the first series, Lyra's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world

In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are revealed to be inseparably linked with the future of the realm. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider war with an oppressive system which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of reason, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be free.

Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles

The story starts with the unveiling of a collection of unusual cracks in the fabric of the planet's air: windows that seem to open into different dimensions. One such opening appears to be the point of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid rationalism and revert to feeling, however, her belief that these places must be defended – that what they stand for and their value is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and experience is prepared.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the