Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from governments, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the elaborately built, endlessly enchanting world he first introduced in the distant past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in animal form; where the skies are filled with witches and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, buses are caught and beverages is drunk, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her separation from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The religious council – the church's controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who blames her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the church's control. Another protagonist, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which manifests in some way to be the source of a societal and economic crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they converge. As in the original series, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private mission to reunite with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider conflict with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is attempting to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The novel opens with the discovery of a collection of strange cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to lead to alternate realities. One such portal appears to be the source of the much debated rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its helm, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and back to intuition, however, her conviction that these locations must be protected – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and knowledge is set.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
