Things are falling apart in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's grand trilogies set in a realm that manifests, now more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or reassembling themselves along new and troubling lines. An hidden force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and accumulating in the chambers of religious leaders, the coffers of corporations, the control of rioters. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just 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, by all accounts, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a world whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, souls in animal form; where the skies are populated with witches and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are caught and beverages is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the spiky and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but aged, more sorrowful, more careful, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to depart in quest of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a picaresque journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of austere, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – our protagonist's uncle, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's rule. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the rare and valuable essential oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by some as a tradeable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by further factions – the extremist "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of darkness; an challenge that must be obliterated. The question of its source, its significance, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Similar to His Dark Materials, her actions and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the future of the universe. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the primary battleground in a broader conflict with an authoritarian government which, as such regimes often attempt, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, originality and culture: all the internal, defiant ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The book starts with the discovery of a collection of strange fissures in the structure of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that appear to open into alternate realities. One such opening seems to be the source of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from rigid reason and back to instinct, however, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and their value is mysteriously essential – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a poetic conflict between purity and knowledge is set.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
