Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a universe that seems, here more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Power is draining from states, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of crowds. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and strong are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Precisely what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a realm whose landscape corresponds to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and think and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and tea is sipped, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the prior volumes, but more mature, melancholic, more careful, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he represents as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the position of president of the Magisterium's governing body, and is set on using his newfound authority to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an young boy in the prequel, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about Delamare's aims. And beneath all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and precious botanical extract which seems mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance rippling out from Central Asia. The extract is regarded by certain groups as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or safeguarded is becoming urgent.
Like the original trilogy, our protagonist's deeds, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably linked with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the future of the world. Her individual journey to reconnect with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a wider battle with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is striving to quell independence of reason, originality and culture: all the personal, defiant ways in which individuals can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book starts with the unveiling of a set of unusual cracks in the makeup of the Earth's atmosphere: portals that look to open into other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the point of the much debated mystical extract. The church, with its leader at its head, designates these windows as a threat to the institution's doctrine and aims to destroy them. As our protagonist begins to move from inflexible rationalism and back to instinct, yet, her conviction that these places must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously crucial – grows. "Dust, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a Blakean struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
