Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Organizations are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the vaults of corporations, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and solid are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Just what that element might be, and ways to oppose it, is the mystery that animates The Rose Field, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding excursion into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling world he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, essences in animal form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, buses are ridden and tea is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the prickly and determined protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This limitation is heightened by her split from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw the protagonist undertake a adventurous voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, encountering with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling representation of strict, administrative malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of president of the church's ruling assembly, and is set on using his recently acquired power to extend the institution's control. A key character, who rescued baby the heroine to refuge along a flooded river as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the source of a social and financial disturbance emanating out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a wellspring of malevolence; an affront that must be obliterated. The dilemma of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or protected is escalating in importance.
As in the original trilogy, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these narratives ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably entwined with the future of the world. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her imagination becomes the key struggle in a larger conflict with an oppressive system which, as such authorities typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of reason, originality and art: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be independent.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The novel begins with the discovery of a series of curious fissures in the structure of the planet's sky: portals that appear to give on to alternate realities. An example of a opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with Delamare at its helm, designates these openings as a problem to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to move from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is established.
Story Tempo and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
