Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful 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 unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from governments, and accumulating in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the grasp of rioters. "Something is at work, stealthily, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that animates this final volume, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, according to many, the author's final venture into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling world he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose geography maps on to that of the real world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and think and act like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but underneath, transports are ridden and beverages is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the spiky and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is heightened by her division from her soul companion, Pantalaimon – but it was also, ironically, the trigger which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in quest of that youthful part of Lyra which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of its predecessor, which chronicled the protagonist undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and risk on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of rigid, procedural wickedness – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – our protagonist's relative, who holds responsible her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of president of the church's governing body, and is determined on using his fresh influence to broaden the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who saved baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is assigned to the city to learn more about the antagonist's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and valuable botanical extract which appears in some way to be the origin of a social and economic upheaval emanating out from the region. The substance is viewed by some as a tradeable product, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual miracle, and by others still – the zealous "highland figures" – as a source of evil; an challenge that must be obliterated. The issue of its origins, its meaning, and if it should be destroyed or protected is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be deeply linked with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these narratives ran largely in side by side. In The Rose Field, they converge. Similar to the original series, her movements and her path are unveiled to be deeply linked with the future of the realm. Her private journey to rejoin with her daemon and rediscover her vision becomes the primary struggle in a larger war with an controlling government which, as these systems often attempt, is seeking to quell independence of reason, originality and art: all the inner, defiant ways in which people can be liberated.
Dimensional Rifts and Moral Battles
The novel starts with the unveiling of a set of curious cracks in the structure of the world's atmosphere: windows that appear to lead to different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the source of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and sets out to destroy them. As the heroine begins to turn away from inflexible reason and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their significance and their value is mysteriously vital – grows. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the field of roses, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we require it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between innocence and maturity is set.
Story Tempo and Protagonist Growth
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
