Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a universe that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reassembling themselves along novel and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the grasp of mobs. "Some force is at work, silently, imperceptibly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were stable and solid are faltering and failing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the question that drives The Rose Field, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, according to many, the author's last excursion into the elaborately built, deeply captivating universe he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the spiky and persistent main character of the earlier books, but more mature, melancholic, warier, less certain. This restraint is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that youthful part of her which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "creativity"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the catalysts of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with amazement and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in action, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who blames her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who saved baby the heroine to refuge along a overflowing river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in espionage: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the source of a social and economic upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by various factions as a marketable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or esoteric miracle, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be obliterated. The dilemma of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her future, are demonstrated to be inextricably connected with the destiny of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. As in His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the fate of the realm. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to stifle independence of thinking, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's sky: windows that appear to lead to other worlds. A particular portal seems to be the source of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The church, with Delamare at its head, classifies these portals as a problem to the religion's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and return to intuition, however, her belief that these places must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is somehow vital – grows. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a poetic conflict between purity and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
