The Rose Field, the third and final volume in Philip Pullman’s The Book of Dust trilogy is finally in the hands of his readers.

This trilogy accompanies Pullman’s earlier series, His Dark Materials, and tells stories that happen both before and after those original books. Both trilogies follow Lyra Belacqua and her daemon, Pantalaimon – a manifestation of her soul in animal form. In The Rose Field, Lyra journeys deep into the desert for one final discovery about the mysterious substance that connects both series: Dust.

The title of Pullman’s first trilogy comes from John Milton’s 17th-century epic poem Paradise Lost, which tells the story of Satan’s rebellion against Heaven. In it, Milton wrote: “Unless th’ Almighty Maker them ordain / His dark materials to create more worlds.”

In Milton’s poem, the “dark materials” are the chaotic and primordial matter from which God could create new worlds. In Pullman’s stories, however, “dark materials” take the form of Dust – also called shadow particles, Rusakov particles, or dark matter.

Unlike Milton’s lifeless matter, Dust is alive and connected to consciousness and creativity. Through this idea, Pullman turns Milton’s vision upside down, rejecting divine authority and celebrating human imagination.

Across both trilogies, two opposing views of Dust exist. A restrictive theocratic organisation known as the Magisterium declares Dust original sin: “an emanation from the dark principle itself.” Yet due to Dust’s association with daemons and consciousness, Lyra, Pan and their allies remain convinced that Dust must be “good”.

To fully understand Pullman’s Dust we must go beyond Paradise Lost, back to the foundational story in the Judeo-Christian tradition: Genesis.

Dust thou art?

Northern Lights (1995) describes how Dust takes its name from a “curious verse” in the story of Adam and Eve’s fall in Genesis. In it, God curses Adam for eating forbidden fruit saying: “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

In this moment, Adam and Eve leave behind their innocent, harmonious life with nature. Pullman pinpoints this as the moment in the Bible where a rift opens between humanity and the material world. From then on, humans move from living in unity with the material world to feeling separate from it, forced to struggle against nature instead of living alongside it.

The scholar Mary talking to Dust in the BBC adaptation of The Amber Spyglass.

In Pullman’s inversion, the Authority (God) did not simply create using Dust, but was, like all angels, formed from it. As one of the rebel angel characters explains in the final book of the original trilogy, The Amber Spyglass (2001): “Dust is only a name for what happens when matter begins to understand itself. Matter loves matter. It seeks to know more about itself and Dust is formed.”

This line reveals that Dust is not just connected to the human spirit – our thoughts, feelings, imagination and soul – but also presents a view of reality shaped by matter itself. Through Dust, ideas about the soul are linked to a sense of wonder at the material world.

This echoes the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers who first imagined the universe as made up of moving atoms. Yet throughout His Dark Materials, there is still a sense that humans are special, as human consciousness appears as the culmination of matter understanding itself.

New forms of alienation

In the Book of Dust trilogy, this shifts radically. Pullman has acknowledged that his new books are increasingly shaped by our current times, in which our detachment from our world is enabling the destruction of Earth.

For Pullman, belief in God has passed onto belief in another entity which will save us from the world and its toil: technology. If the split between humans and matter estranged us from the material world, now we face being alienated even from ourselves.

In this new context of alienation, Pullman’s concept of Dust evolves. It moves from being primarily associated with human creativity to implying that human consciousness is intrinsically linked to all matter.

As he writes in La Belle Savage (2017), the first instalment in the Book of Dust trilogy: “There is a field of consciousness that pervades the entire universe, and which makes itself apparent most fully – we believe – in human beings.”

After boldly overthrowing the figure of God (the Authority) in The Amber Spyglass, Pullman seems intent on challenging today’s dominant way of thinking by helping people rediscover a deeper, more imaginative relationship with the physical world.

If we see matter as just lifeless stuff that can only be measured or used, then humans aren’t really powerful – instead, we become spiritually and creatively impoverished.

Philip Pullman speaking about Dust.

In The Secret Commonwealth (2019), the second book in the Book of Dust trilogy, Lyra has fallen victim to this new disease, which grips the young of her world. A belief that: “Nothing is any more than what it is.” This separates her from her daemon Pan, who must set off in search for her “imagination”.

His Dark Materials offered a story of the endless battle against authoritarian and restrictive structures. Lyra and Pan’s final adventure in The Rose Field, meanwhile, is an allegorical search for those most human of qualities, in which society now holds a faltering faith: feeling and imagination.

Dust becomes a rich symbol that shows how deeply and permanently we’re connected to everything in the world – that we’re part of it, not separate from it.

The beauty of Pullman’s “Dust” is that we don’t need to inhabit Lyra’s world to see that this is true. The physical qualities of Dust tells us we are deeply connected to everything and everyone. We have the remnants of stars within us, as do even the most seemingly inert objects in our world.

The Roman poet Horace once declared: “We are but dust and shadow.” But in a world in a crisis of narration, we need storytellers like Pullman to illuminate our forgotten particles and darkest materials with light.

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This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Samuel Jesse Cox, University of Tübingen

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Samuel Jesse Cox does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.