Tings are collapsing in the final volume of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a world that manifests, in this volume especially, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Institutions are crumbling, or restructuring themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An invisible 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 authorities, and gathering in the offices of religious leaders, the vaults of business empires, the hands of mobs. "Some force is at work, very quietly, gradually", says trader Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Aspects we thought were stable and strong are faltering and giving way."
Core Enigma and The Protagonist's Path
Just what that force might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that drives the concluding book, which continues where the previous book ended. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding foray into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first revealed three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose history veers and changes with ours; where the humans appear and reason and behave like us, but are accompanied by animal souls, beings in beast form; where the heavens are filled with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are taken and tea is consumed, and older academics carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a child in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a baby 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 heroine of the earlier books, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, more doubtful. This restraint is amplified by her separation from her daemon, Pan – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
The daemon's resolve to go off in quest of that childlike part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an quality which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to rejoin with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which saw Lyra undertake a wandering voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and danger on the way. But from the outset, underlying forces were in action, and malevolent elements at work. The church authority – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling embodiment of rigid, bureaucratic evil – is under new leadership, and asserting its power. Lyra's uncle – the heroine's family member, who holds responsible her for his sister's death – has positioned himself into the position of leader of the authority's ruling assembly, and is set on using his newfound authority to broaden the religion's rule. A key character, who rescued infant Lyra to security along a flooded river as an young boy in La Belle Sauvage, is now an academic with a secondary role in spycraft: he is dispatched to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's plans. And underlying all of this is the mystery surrounding the uncommon and precious rose oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by some as a marketable product, by others as a research-based or mystical wonder, and by further factions – the fanatical "highland figures" – as a origin of darkness; an affront that must be destroyed. The dilemma of where it comes from, its significance, and whether it should be removed or preserved is escalating in importance.
As in the first series, Lyra's actions, and her fate, are revealed to be inseparably linked with the fate of the realm
In its predecessor, these narratives ran broadly in parallel. In the conclusion, they come together. As in the first trilogy, the protagonist's actions and her path are revealed to be inextricably entwined with the destiny of the world. Her individual mission to reconnect with her companion and rediscover her vision becomes the central battleground in a larger battle with an oppressive system which, as such regimes typically do, is striving to stifle independence of thought, innovation and culture: all the personal, rebellious ways in which individuals can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts
The book begins with the discovery of a set of unusual openings in the structure of the planet's atmosphere: gateways that seem to open into different dimensions. One such opening manifests to be the origin of the highly contested botanical substance. The authority, with Delamare at its leadership, designates these openings as a threat to the institution's orthodoxy and endeavors to eradicate them. As the heroine begins to shift from rigid logic and return to instinct, yet, her certainty that these locations must be protected – that their meaning and what they provide is somehow essential – increases. "Dust, or the substance, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and maturity is prepared.
Story Tempo and Personal Evolution
At over six hundred pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
