Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, here more than ever, as a energized and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and troubling lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Authority is flowing away from authorities, and pooling in the offices of religious leaders, the treasuries of conglomerates, the control of crowds. "An element is at work, stealthily, imperceptibly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are weakening and giving way."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Exactly what that something might be, and methods to fight it, is the mystery that propels The Rose Field, which continues where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, the author's final venture into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting universe he first revealed in the distant past, with the publication of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose landscape aligns with that of the real world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the individuals look and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by external spirits, souls in animal form; where the air are populated with sorceresses and legendary creatures, but underneath, transports are taken and beverages is drunk, and middle-aged scholars carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the first trilogy, and then revisited as a infant in the first volume, the introductory book with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a adult: still distinctly the spiky and determined protagonist of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less sure. This circumscription is intensified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
The daemon's resolve to leave in pursuit of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he symbolizes as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the incitements of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed Lyra undertake a wandering trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in play, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the faith's governing authority, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of rigid, administrative malice – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. The antagonist – the heroine's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has positioned himself into the role of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired authority to extend the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an child in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a sideline in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and precious rose oil which seems somehow to be the origin of a societal and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The substance is regarded by various factions as a marketable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or mystical phenomenon, and by further factions – the zealous "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of its source, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.
Like His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are shown to be inextricably entwined with the future of the universe
In the previous volume, these narratives ran mostly in side by side. In the conclusion, they merge. As in the first trilogy, Lyra's choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably woven with the future of the world. Her individual mission to rejoin with her daemon and recover her creativity becomes the primary conflict in a larger conflict with an authoritarian government which, as these systems typically do, is striving to quell independence of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which humans can be liberated.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The story starts with the finding of a series of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that look to open into other worlds. A particular window manifests to be the origin of the much debated botanical substance. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its head, designates these portals as a threat to the religion's beliefs and aims to eliminate them. As Lyra begins to turn away from strict logic and revert to intuition, yet, her conviction that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and their value is mysteriously crucial – increases. "The substance, or the substance, or the vision, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we require it." The stage for a poetic tussle between naivety and knowledge is set.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
