Things are falling apart in the last installment of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a charged and tilted version of our own. Establishments are crumbling, or reorganizing themselves along novel and disquieting lines. An hidden force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Power is shifting from states, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of corporations, the control of mobs. "An element is at work, stealthily, gradually", says trader a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are faltering and collapsing."
The Central Mystery and The Protagonist's Path
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which resumes where The Secret Commonwealth left off. This is, according to many, the author's last foray into the intricately constructed, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled 30 years ago, with the launch of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of the real world, but whose chronicles tacks and jibes with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by daemons, essences in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and mythical beasts, but below, transports are ridden and drinks is consumed, and older academics carry fancy shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in the prequel, the introductory book with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, warier, less certain. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
His choice to leave in search of that innocent part of the heroine which she appears to have shed (an trait which he symbolizes as her "vision"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the catalysts of The Secret Commonwealth, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque voyage across the continent and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and risk on the way. But from the beginning, deeper currents were in motion, and malevolent elements at work. The Magisterium – the church's controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister representation of rigid, administrative evil – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who faults her for his family member's death – has worked himself into the office of head of the authority's governing body, and is set on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant the heroine to refuge along a overflowing Thames as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a additional duty in espionage: he is sent to the city to learn more about his aims. And beneath all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears mysteriously to be the cause of a social and economic disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The substance is seen by certain groups as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or spiritual miracle, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or protected is becoming urgent.
Like the first series, Lyra's decisions, and her future, are shown to be inseparably entwined with the future of the realm
In the previous volume, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In this final book, they come together. Similar to His Dark Materials, Lyra's actions and her path are unveiled to be deeply woven with the destiny of the world. Her individual quest to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central struggle in a wider war with an oppressive system which, as these systems typically do, is striving to stifle independence of thinking, originality and expression: all the internal, resistant ways in which people can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the finding of a collection of strange openings in the fabric of the world's atmosphere: portals that appear to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening seems to be the origin of the much debated mystical extract. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, labels these openings as a threat to the church's beliefs and sets out to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid rationalism and return to feeling, nevertheless, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that their significance and their value is somehow essential – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or no matter what we name it," she says, "we require it." The setting for a Blakean conflict between innocence and experience is established.
Narrative Pacing and Character Development
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
