Quote:
Originally Posted by Lalwendë
Yes, and there is the quite beautiful thing about His Dark Materials - that in the end God is to be found in the very fabric of existence, not merely in the anthropomorphic figure of an aged man. This where davem's derided Republic of Heaven comes in - it is a state of existence which all share, not just those who have paid the subscription fees - and that in itself is yet another message from these stories, that God cannot simply be accessed by putting your cash onto a brass dish; the Magisterium is also a symbol of money and how it has done and very much still does corrupt churches.
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But is Dust an actual physical thing (a form of matter) or is it a metaphor for imagination/love? Can't really be both - unless Pullman is actually writing a parable & not a story at all. Pullman seems to be doing a Humpty Dumpty, & having Dust mean whatever he wants it to mean at any particular point in the story. Is this 'Divine' Dust a physical thing - in which case it can't be something as abstract & metaphysical as love or imagination, or is it simply a floating metaphor for 'nice' things - in which case how can its presence be registered on machines, or anything be done with it at all?