Dust in "His Dark Materials"

[caliburncy]

Hi,

Well, since there seems to be some effort on the part of others to 
get a discussion started on Dust, I will forward here part of a 
letter that I sent to Jenny from Ravenclaw offlist when we discussed 
this in the past.  Obviously, my copying it here now will not 
directly help Jenny out in her ongoing study of Dust, since any use 
she could possibly have gleaned from my vague and unenlightening 
comments she would have acquired already when I sent it to her the 
first time.  But maybe this will serve as a starting point for other 
people to comment from, and maybe in that way Jenny and any other 
interested persons will reap the benefits from those later responses.

So here are my comments to Jenny when she asked me what my opinion 
was of just what Dust was intended to represent.

==================================================================

Hmm . . . that's a tough question really, because
personally I'm not convinced that Pullman intended one
single analoguous word to be put to it, which of
course would be why you are struggling with it. 
Obviously, I do think Dust represents just one thing,
not many things, but I'm not sure that it's something
we have an ideal word for--so it seems to be like a
compilation of many words, none of which is quite
right, but the sum total of which gives us an inkling
perhaps of what is really being described.

For example, I have seen the following words applied
to Dust, and none seems quite the "perfect" fit.

-----------------------------------------------------
Sin or any particular sin (i.e. your example of lust)
-----------------------------------------------------

This is certainly how the Church views Dust, but the
people who seem to have the greatest understanding of
Dust (Lord Asriel, Mrs. Coulter, John Parry, etc.) all
appear to be somewhat aware that there is more to it
than that.  I even got the impression that Father
MacPhail (that guy at the head of the Church) knew
there was more to it beyond the party line.

Pullman was certainly drawing a comparison between
Dust and Original Sin in the story of Adam and Eve
(particularly as understood by the Catholic Church in
our world--many other denominations, such as the one I
am in, do not really talk about or acknowledge a
concept of Original Sin).  I am not exactly positive
how the Catholic Church would describe Original Sin
therefore, but I think it tends to be equated with
knowledge (because the apple is from the Tree of
Knowledge).

--------------------
Knowledge/Experience
--------------------

Obviously, these two terms are not synonyms, but I
will address them together for the purposes of
comparison to Dust.  Both of these, to some extent,
explain why Dust accumulates around adults and not
children, although that makes it a bit strange that
the change is fairly abrupt, rather than gradually
accumulating.

In terms of the Adam and Eve story, although the
translation tends to be "knowledge", this seems a bit
limited, because ultimately what we are probably
talking about is the quality that (allegedly)
distinctifies humans from other animals.  Because up
until this point, humans are still innocent, but
afterwards they are not.  It is the same reason we
could never condemn the brutality of nature, because
nature just *is* that way--it is, in its own way,
innocent, and unaware and/or not subject to the human
interpretations of morality.

Another way of interpreting the "knowledge"
translation in the Adam and Eve story is as knowledge
of the divine--possessing some portion of the
knowledge that previously God alone had possessed. 
But I don't think that this, so much as the above
comparison, is the one Pullman was probably trying to
make.

-----------------
Loss of Innocence
-----------------

Often times, experience is also equated with a loss of
innocence, probably not so much because they are
perceived as antonyms as because in our life
experiences we tend to find that gaining experience
inevitably does include some sort of loss of
innocence.  In HDM, this begins quite early for Lyra
(not agewise, necessarily--I mean 'early' in the sense
that she has already lost a great deal of innocence by
the end of the first book).  She is taken out of a
place of childish fun and thoughtlessness, and made to
question many things she had not previously thought to
consider alternatives to.  And she finds everything
out in the world to be much more complex and dangerous
than anticipated.  This is, of course, a common
element of growing up.

But as for where Dust comes into this picture, it is
basically in the sense that adults have lost this
innocence for whatever reason, and children have not. 
There are all sorts of pre/post Lyra (or Will,
too) distinctions that can be made to show how she has
lost some of her innocence--and not in a bad way, just
a necessary one--but none of these are shown to be the
result of Dust, and they happen gradually.  It is more
likely that Dust results from them, and its
accumulation, by contrast, seems to occur abruptly. 
So it's back to the same basic comparison as with
knowledge/experience.

----------------
Sexual Awakening
----------------

Loss of innocence is often symbolized in literature
through sexual awakening, whether because adolescence
is the threshold to adulthood or whether out of an
archetypal comparison to virginity or whether out of
some other reason deeply ingrained in the human
psyche, I cannot say.  Pullman certainly takes
advantage of this symbolism, even makes it quite
literal, in the sense that it is following the scene
with the apple and the kiss that the Dust converges on
Will and Lyra, so though is no doubt that Dust is
intrinsically connected to the sexual awakening.  But
I do not think that Dust itself is solely a symbol of
sexual awakening, because following the logic of
degrees of separation if Dust is a symbol of sexual
awakening, and sexual awakening is a symbol of loss of
innocence, then the possibility that Dust is also a
symbol of loss of innocence must be taken into
consideration.

---------------------------------
Planes of Consciousness/Sentience
---------------------------------

Allow me to jump backward real quickly to the Adam and
Eve story and the idea that Dust may symbolize what
separates humans from animals, or even (if less
scientifically so) children from adults.  One
possibility here, then, is the notion of planes of
consciousness: the idea that as we grow in knowledge
or experience or wisdom or what have you, we are
moving in direction toward a higher plane of
consciousness of some sort.  I don't think this sort
of thing is quantifiable, and perhaps that would be
one reason to use Dust as a 'before and after' picture

------------------------------------------------------
Awakening/Awareness (on an ethical or spiritual level)
------------------------------------------------------

Of course, if we take the planes of consciousness to
its next logical extension, then we are talking about
another awakening of sorts.  Not a sexual awakening as
before, but an awakening that has to do with how we
perceive and understand the world and our connection
to it.  In this sense, it is either an ethical or
spiritual awakening, or both.  This would make the
moment of accumulation of Dust, the moment of actual
awakening--the moment of "shift", in terms of the
planes of consciousness; the moment of "crossing the
threshold" in terms of growing up--and in this sense,
it ties together and makes logical sense of the fact
that the gaining of experience/knowledge is gradual,
but the accumulation of Dust is abrupt.  Change of
this sort is obviously gradual, but there is an
identifiable turning point: an epiphany or revelation,
if you will.

***

And so, if you look at the list of words I have above,
or any other word that you think accurately applies to
Dust, I think you may find that they are all
interconnected somehow.  From a certain point of view,
they are all ways of describing or talking about
something, some concept, that lacks a sole, precise
word.  And that's what I think Dust is supposed to be,
personally.  I think individual people may have a
preference for one way of looking at it or another,
but I'm not convinced that one way is truly the most
accurate.  Myself, I show a slight preference for the
idea of Dust representing a change of awareness or
awakening on an ethical or spiritual level, but that's
not what I think Dust *is*, because Dust is every bit
as much the other things mentioned as well.

I have never seen Pullman himself give much of a
single-word equivalent for Dust.  The closest he seems
to have come is talking about the difference between
innocence and experience, but even there he was
technically discussing it as the major theme of the
book, not as the sole symbolic equivalent of Dust.

His explanation of Dust in the Readerville interview
was:

> Now then, Dust. Dust permeates everything in the
> universe, and existed before we individuals did and
> will continue after us. Dust enriches us and is
> nurtured in turn by us; it brings wisdom and it is
> kept alive by love and curiosity and diligent
> enquiry and kindness and patience and hope. The
> relationship we have with Dust is mutually
> beneficial. Instead of being the dependent children
> of an all-powerful king, we are partners and equals
> with Dust in the great project of keeping the
> universe alive. It's a republican relationship, if
> you like, not a monarchical one. I don't find it
> difficult to think that Dust might suggest a new
> kind of relationship with a God.

So while Dust is clearly symbolic, I still think Dust
is . . . Dust.

But I guess that's not terribly helpful as an answer,
now is it?

-Luke