Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, very quietly, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the trade routes from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor left off. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose chronicles veers and changes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and drinks is consumed, and mature academics carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in the prequel, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, melancholic, more careful, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that innocent part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, facing with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic evil – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the church's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby Lyra to safety along a overflowing river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to find out more about Delamare's intentions. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and valuable essential oil which appears in some way to be the source of a social and financial crisis spreading out from the region. The extract is seen by some as a commercial good, by alternate groups as a research-based or esoteric phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be deeply connected with the future of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Like the first trilogy, her choices and her fate are shown to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her personal journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the key struggle in a wider conflict with an controlling government which, as these systems always have, is seeking to suppress freedom of thought, creativity and expression: all the personal, defiant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story opens with the unveiling of a set of strange openings in the structure of the planet's air: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening seems to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a challenge to the religion's doctrine and sets out to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and return to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is prepared.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
