Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and pooling in the chambers of religious leaders, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of our world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, buses are caught and drinks is sipped, and mature scholars carry luxury shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that innocent part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, procedural wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Lyra's uncle – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's rule. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a swollen Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is sent to a key location to discover more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which manifests somehow to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The substance is regarded by certain groups as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or mystical wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and regain her imagination becomes the key struggle in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The book opens with the finding of a series of unusual openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into alternate realities. One such window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a Blakean conflict between purity and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
