Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; concurrently, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and gathering in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Just what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which picks up where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, deeply captivating universe he first introduced three decades past, with the release of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose geography corresponds to that of our world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are paired by external spirits, beings in beast form; where the air are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a child in the original trilogy, and then saw again as a toddler in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her animal guide, Pan – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to depart in search of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister embodiment of strict, administrative wickedness – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of leader of the church's governing body, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to broaden the church's rule. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in the first book, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to learn more about the antagonist's aims. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious essential oil which manifests somehow to be the source of a social and financial crisis rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is seen by various factions as a commercial good, by others as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its source, its significance, and whether it should be destroyed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, the heroine's deeds, and her destiny, are shown to be inseparably connected with the destiny of the world
In the previous volume, these plots ran mostly in side by side. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her personal mission to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the key struggle in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as these systems always have, is attempting to quell freedom of reason, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which individuals can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story begins with the discovery of a series of strange fissures in the fabric of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a window seems to be the origin of the fiercely disputed mystical extract. The authority, with its leader at its leadership, labels these openings as a challenge to the religion's beliefs and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to shift from strict logic and return to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical tussle between innocence and experience is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
