Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Organizations are failing, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An hidden force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and solid are weakening and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in creature form; where the skies are filled with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are caught and tea is consumed, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the earlier books, but older, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the authority's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh authority to extend the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued young Lyra to security along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a sideline in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly rose oil which seems mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval emanating out from that area. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a marketable product, by others as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be eradicated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be deeply entwined with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In this final book, they come together. Like the original series, her choices and her path are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the world. Her individual mission to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an controlling regime which, as these systems always have, is seeking to suppress independence of thought, innovation and art: all the personal, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the structure of the Earth's sky: windows that appear to open into other worlds. A particular window appears to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its head, labels these openings as a threat to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid reason and revert to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they provide is in some way essential – strengthens. "Dust, or the extract, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic tussle between purity and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
