Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, now more than ever, as a charged and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along novel 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". Control is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives this final volume, which continues where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and think and act like us, but are paired by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still clearly the prickly and tenacious protagonist of the previous installments, but older, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This limitation is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that youthful part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of austere, procedural malice – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's control. A key character, who saved young Lyra to safety along a swollen Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about his plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly rose oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by some as a tradeable good, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by yet others – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an challenge that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its origins, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
Similar to the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they come together. Similar to the original series, Lyra's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm. Her personal journey to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an controlling government which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to quell freedom of thinking, creativity and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The book starts with the finding of a set of curious openings in the structure of the planet's air: windows that look to give on to alternate realities. An example of a window appears to be the point of the highly contested rose oil. The authority, with Delamare at its helm, labels these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict rationalism and back to feeling, however, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is in some way essential – strengthens. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "it is necessary." The setting for a philosophical tussle between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
