Tings are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that seems, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Establishments are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were firm and solid are faltering and collapsing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Just what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, according to many, the author's concluding venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling realm he first introduced three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose history diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are joined by animal souls, essences in beast form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry luxury shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the original trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in La Belle Sauvage, the introductory book with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the prickly and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but aged, sadder, warier, more doubtful. This limitation is heightened by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she may have forgotten (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw the protagonist undertake a wandering journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with amazement and peril on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and darker forces at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has worked himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh influence to extend the church's rule. A key character, who carried baby the heroine to safety along a swollen river as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and costly essential oil which manifests in some way to be the cause of a societal and financial upheaval spreading out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a wellspring of evil; an affront that must be obliterated. The question of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her destiny, are revealed to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, her choices and her fate are revealed to be deeply linked with the fate of the realm. Her personal mission to reunite with her companion and recover her imagination becomes the key conflict in a wider war with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to suppress freedom of thought, innovation and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be independent.
Dimensional Rifts and Philosophical Struggles
The novel begins with the discovery of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the planet's air: gateways that appear to give on to other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the source of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its helm, designates these windows as a problem to the church's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from rigid rationalism and revert to intuition, nevertheless, her belief that these locations must be defended – that their significance and what they offer is mysteriously crucial – strengthens. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a philosophical struggle between innocence and knowledge is established.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
