Tings are collapsing in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or restructuring themselves along new and troubling lines. An invisible force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is flowing away from states, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of conglomerates, the control of mobs. "Some force is at work, stealthily, very subtly", says merchant a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the trade routes from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were stable and strong are deteriorating and failing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor left off. This is, reportedly, the author's last excursion into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting world he first revealed 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of the real world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the individuals appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by daemons, essences in beast form; where the skies are teeming with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but beneath those skies, vehicles are ridden and drinks is drunk, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more 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 sharp and determined protagonist of the previous installments, but more mature, more sorrowful, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is intensified by her split from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she may have forgotten (an quality which he represents as her "vision"), and her quest to rejoin with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, facing with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie embodiment of rigid, procedural evil – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's family member, who holds responsible her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of leader of the church's ruling assembly, and is intent on using his fresh authority to extend the church's rule. A key character, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a flooded Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to discover more about the antagonist's plans. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a societal and financial crisis emanating out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable good, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of malevolence; an insult that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
As in the original trilogy, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe
In its predecessor, these plots ran mostly in tandem. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her actions and her fate are revealed to be deeply woven with the future of the universe. Her personal quest to rejoin with her soul and rediscover her imagination becomes the central conflict in a broader conflict with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to suppress autonomy of reason, originality and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Moral Battles
The story begins with the finding of a collection of unusual fissures in the fabric of the world's air: portals that look to lead to other worlds. An example of a opening appears to be the origin of the highly contested mystical extract. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these windows as a problem to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to instinct, yet, her certainty that these places must be defended – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow vital – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the botanical realm, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean struggle between purity and experience is set.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
