Tings are falling apart in the concluding book of The Book of Dust, the second of the author's masterful trilogies set in a realm that appears, in this volume especially, as a charged and skewed version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reassembling themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is shifting from governments, and gathering in the chambers of religious leaders, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a observant eye on the trade routes from his post in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and durable are faltering and failing."
Key Puzzle and Lyra's Journey
Exactly what that element might be, and how to counteract it, is the inquiry that drives this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor concluded. This is, reportedly, the author's concluding excursion into the carefully crafted, deeply captivating universe he first introduced three decades past, with the launch of Northern Lights. It's a domain whose terrain maps on to that of this world, but whose chronicles diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are joined by external spirits, essences in creature form; where the skies are filled with enchantresses and legendary creatures, but below, buses are taken and tea is drunk, and older professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then saw again as a baby in La Belle Sauvage, the origin story with which the author began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the prickly and tenacious heroine of the previous installments, but older, melancholic, warier, more doubtful. This restraint is heightened by her split from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, ironically, the cause which led him to leave her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to leave in quest of that youthful part of the heroine which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her quest to reunite with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the Caucasus, encountering with marvel and danger on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in action, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the religious governing authority, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of strict, bureaucratic malice – is under recent guidance, and flexing its muscles. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's uncle, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the role of head of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his fresh authority to expand the church's control. Malcolm Polstead, who rescued young Lyra to refuge along a swollen river as an child in the prequel, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in espionage: he is assigned to a key location to learn more about his intentions. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears somehow to be the cause of a social and financial crisis rippling out from that area. The oil is viewed by some as a tradeable commodity, by different parties as a scientific or spiritual wonder, and by others still – the fanatical "mountain dwellers" – as a origin of malevolence; an affront that must be destroyed. The issue of its origins, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or protected is coming rapidly to the fore.
Similar to the first series, the heroine's actions, and her future, are demonstrated to be deeply connected with the destiny of the universe
In the previous volume, these plots ran broadly in side by side. In the conclusion, they come together. Like the original series, her choices and her destiny are revealed to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her private journey to reconnect with her daemon and regain her vision becomes the key conflict in a larger battle with an oppressive government which, as these systems typically do, is seeking to suppress autonomy of reason, originality and art: all the internal, defiant ways in which people can be free.
Dimensional Rifts and Ideological Conflicts
The story opens with the finding of a collection of strange fissures in the fabric of the world's sky: windows that seem to lead to alternate realities. A particular opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its helm, classifies these openings as a problem to the church's beliefs and endeavors to destroy them. As Lyra begins to move from strict reason and revert to instinct, nevertheless, her certainty that these sites must be preserved – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously essential – grows. "The substance, or the extract, or the imagination, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we call it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a poetic conflict between naivety and knowledge is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Personal Evolution
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
