Tings are collapsing in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and durable are faltering and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling universe he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and think and act like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are ridden and tea is drunk, and mature professors carry fancy shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and persistent heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an trait which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her quest to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and risk on the way. But from the start, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. The antagonist – Lyra's uncle, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the office of leader of the authority's High Council, and is determined on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's dominium. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in the first book, is now an academic with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to a key location to find out more about his aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the scarce and precious essential oil which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by various factions as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a empirical or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The question of where it comes from, its meaning, and if it should be eliminated or protected is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's decisions, and her fate, are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, the protagonist's actions and her path are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the fate of the world. Her personal mission to reconnect with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a wider war with an controlling government which, as these systems often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of reason, creativity and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The book opens with the finding of a series of strange openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into other worlds. An example of a portal appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The Magisterium, with its leader at its leadership, designates these openings as a challenge to the institution's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from strict logic and back to instinct, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is in some way essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical tussle between naivety and maturity is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
