Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of conglomerates, the hands of mobs. "Something is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and giving way."
Key Puzzle and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which picks up where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and tea is drunk, and older scholars carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, melancholic, more careful, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her separation from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
His choice to depart in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's ruling body, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of rigid, procedural malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the role of head of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh power to broaden the institution's rule. Another protagonist, who saved young the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is sent to the city to find out more about his intentions. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable rose oil which manifests somehow to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by certain groups as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably linked with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. Similar to the original series, her actions and her destiny are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the universe. Her private journey to rejoin with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a broader conflict with an controlling system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the personal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book begins with the discovery of a set of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a window appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict reason and revert to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be preserved – that their meaning and what they provide is in some way crucial – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we name it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean struggle between innocence and experience is established.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
