DUST...

[Yasi]

Do you think Dust was the God and Creator?

[[deleted user]]

Dust was the material which forms the being itself. You see, when finally at the end of the trilogy the door leading out of the world of the dead was left open, each dead soul was being turned into dust.
Am I correct or is this my imagination?

[Tom]

I think that's the wrong question to ask. Rather ask what Dust is and stop looking for god in it. Then I think you may find both.

[Catherine]

I think Dust is consciousness, and is somehow sort of biologically eternal. Not eternal, of course, since it was being destroyed through books 2 and 3; but eternal in the sense that it was always there, and was just a biological fact of the universe. Consciousness. Potential for evolution that goes beyond biological changes. I think Pullman doesn't believe in "God and Creator." I think he believes in the divinity of biology.

[Janice]

I think dust is Universal Qi. The book is very Taoist/Buddhist in nature. Dust is the Oneness.

[Yasi]

I think that "God" is the sense in everything, and Dust was something like that. What do you think?

[Larissa]

i think that dust is everything that makes people different from animals, the same thing that aslan breathed (is that a word?) into the animals in the beginning of narnia. its compassion and imagination and consciousness. i think its irrelevent to god, in this story.

are there any good fantasy groups that have this book on their shelf?

[Ann]

I think Dust is God, but a very different, almost transcendentalist, idea of God. Dust is an energy that flows through the worlds and delights in the creations of men. It is only when the false god, the Authority, is destroyed that Dust is truly revealed.

[Kati]

dust has to be the unknown, and will always remain as the unknown. no mater how hard we try to understand it, we will never be able to. it makes things happen and is conscious, but yet it is a structure, a building, and we will see it in whatever shape we wish to see. then again, i've only read up to the second book so far. starting the 3rd this week.

[Gabe495]

I believe that Dust is a kind of life force. It appears in every thing that is or has been altered by life. It also seems to be a force of culture and civilization.

[April]

I thought of Dust as a cosmic life force. You know Carl Sagan, he used to say we are made of cosmic dust. That's how I understood it when I read it. Not that it was God, that it was seperate from God. It created itself, and everything else. Because I thought he's book came to the conclusion that God didn't really exist.