Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's grand trilogies set in a world that appears, here more than ever, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and troubling lines. An invisible force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says trader a trader character, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his place in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and durable are deteriorating and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that drives The Rose Field, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, by all accounts, the author's last venture into the intricately constructed, infinitely beguiling world he first revealed three decades past, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a world whose geography maps on to that of our world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and think and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, beings in creature form; where the skies are teeming with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and beverages is sipped, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still clearly the sharp and persistent main character of the earlier books, but aged, melancholic, warier, less certain. This circumscription is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to go off in pursuit of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her journey to reunite with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the beginning, profound shifts were in motion, and darker forces at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, procedural evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has positioned himself into the position of president of the authority's governing body, and is intent on using his newfound power to expand the religion's dominium. A key character, who saved infant Lyra to refuge along a flooded river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a secondary role in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and valuable essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the source of a societal and financial disturbance emanating out from the region. The extract is regarded by some as a commercial product, by alternate groups as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the extremist "men from the mountains" – as a wellspring of evil; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of where it comes from, what it stands for, and whether it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be deeply entwined with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, her choices and her path are revealed to be inseparably woven with the fate of the world. Her individual journey to reunite with her daemon and regain her creativity becomes the key conflict in a broader battle with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is attempting to stifle autonomy of thought, originality and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the makeup of the world's sky: gateways that seem to give on to alternate realities. One such opening appears to be the source of the fiercely disputed botanical substance. The authority, with its leader at its helm, classifies these openings as a challenge to the church's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible logic and back to intuition, yet, her belief that these sites must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – grows. "Cosmic particles, or rose oil, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a Blakean conflict between naivety and maturity is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
