Things are unraveling in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the next of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, now more than ever, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along new and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the coffers of corporations, the hands of crowds. "Something is at work, silently, very subtly", says merchant a merchant figure, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his place in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and durable are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Her Quest
Exactly what that force might be, and ways to oppose it, is the question that animates The Rose Field, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, by all accounts, the author's last foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled in the distant past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a world whose landscape aligns with that of our world, but whose history tacks and jibes with ours; where the people look and reason and behave like us, but are paired by animal souls, souls in beast form; where the heavens are filled with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but below, vehicles are taken and tea is consumed, and mature academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first encountered as a young girl in the original trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still clearly the sharp and determined main character of the previous installments, but older, more sorrowful, more careful, more doubtful. This circumscription is amplified by her division from her soul companion, Pan – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Converging Storylines
Pan's decision to depart in quest of that childlike part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an quality which he epitomises as her "creativity"), and her mission to rejoin with him, were the incitements of the prior book, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across Europe and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and peril on the way. But from the outset, deeper currents were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the faith's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic malice – is under fresh command, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – the heroine's relative, who faults her for his sister's death – has worked himself into the position of head of the church's High Council, and is determined on using his newfound influence to extend the religion's rule. Another protagonist, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a overflowing Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to learn more about Delamare's intentions. And beneath all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious botanical extract which seems somehow to be the cause of a social and economic crisis rippling out from the region. The oil is seen by some as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a research-based or spiritual wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and if it should be eliminated or preserved is coming rapidly to the fore.
Like the first series, our protagonist's actions, and her future, are shown to be deeply connected with the fate of the universe
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran broadly in tandem. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the original series, Lyra's actions and her fate are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the future of the universe. Her personal journey to reunite with her companion and regain her vision becomes the primary battleground in a larger conflict with an authoritarian system which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, originality and expression: all the personal, resistant ways in which humans can be independent.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the discovery of a set of strange fissures in the makeup of the Earth's air: portals that seem to open into different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with the antagonist at its leadership, designates these portals as a threat to the church's doctrine and endeavors to destroy them. As the heroine begins to move from rigid logic and back to instinct, yet, her belief that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they offer is in some way crucial – increases. "The substance, or the extract, or the creativity, or the botanical realm, or whatever we name it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical conflict between purity and experience is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
