Hello to all! I’m going to try to keep my usual over-verbosity in check this week somewhat–I’m really more interested in what YOU guys are thinking. I have had access to my own ideas about Dune for 20 years now, and yours are much more interesting. Especially when they lead to new Dune thoughts for me. Hey sue me, I’m selfish.
To that end, this week I’d like to focus on two points:
POINT THE FIRST: Frank Herbert does an interesting thing with his protagonist in Dune. We’re at a point in the book’s plot where Paul has been removed from the relative safety of his position as a duke’s son, and now is moving headlong into his role as the center of legend, both existing and new.
Herbert handles this change with a series of crisis points in Paul’s development–beginning with the gom jabbar in the first chapter, then progressing through various tests (flying into the sandstorm, eluding the sandworm, the fight with Jamis) along the way. Herbert builds things up in the internal world, and then they seem to erupt into real-world action. I hadn’t really thought of this as much in earlier readings, but it’s an interesting way to progress the story, both from a plot and a thematic point. It’s not like a person’s internal struggle with their own prescience always makes for the most gripping reading, but Herbert ties this struggle to the external struggle Paul has with his environment, the Fremen, his mother, etc.
When I was a kid we never went to movie theatres, so I read the Star Wars novelizations long before I ever saw the movies. I remember feeling almost breathless during the last half of The Return of the Jedi–the story kept switching from Admiral Ackbar with his massed Rebel fleet (“It’s a trap!!”) to Lando Calrissian flying into the Death Star (“We’ve got to give Han more time!!”), to Han and the Ewoks trying to break into the Imperial bunker on Endor. I know the Star Wars novelizations are hardly the best entry for pacing in a novel, but I am always thinking of them when I read books today, especially adventure books.
above, by Warren Craghead
In Dune Herbert seems to balance the internal world of Paul’s prescience (and his growing fear of his own “terrible purpose”) with the external world of the Fremen, conflict, the planet itself, etc. I think this is probably the thing that saves the book from the fate of its sequels, which are much more tilted to the idealogical side of things, and much less on adventure.
POINT THE SECOND (much shorter point): The scene where Jessica is taking the Water of Life and realizes that her unborn daughter is being exposed not only to her own consciousness, but the amassed experiences of the “corridor” of past Reverend Mothers that Ramallo pours into her… super important scene. This seems pretty mystical on the surface, as if some magical door opened up in Jessica’s mind and there were all these old ladies in robes hanging out in there. Later I think Herbert tempers this a little bit, makes it more of a chemical/genetic transfer–it becomes hugely important later, both in this book and the later ones.
I can’t help thinking that, while Herbert insists he had most of second and third books planned out before ever beginning Dune, this is one of the things he later had to retroactively refine. He revisits the idea (somewhat sloppily) of this idea of past lives existing within a person’s genetic structure in Dune Messiah, and then perfects it in Children of Dune and God Emperor of Dune.
above, by Evan Dahm
Okay, sorry to keep mentioning later books. I admit that I have read ahead to the end, so I’m thinking about what comes next now a little bit. Sorry!
Questions: Count Fenring, am I right? I love that guy, I almost drew him this week, but I decided to go for the old lady instead. I thought in his scenes with Baron Harkonnen and Feyd-Rautha, he actually came off as much more dangerous than either of them. As I’ve said, I think Herbert does a bad job of making the antagonists in the book all that threatening. If Paul is going to turn into some sort of super-Messiah or something, then the bad guy needs to be pretty amazing, right?
I guess that was only one question, if you can even call it that. I’m running late here, and have already talked too much. I want to hear more from you guys though, you ask the questions this week!
And for next week: read to the end of the chapter where Paul thinks: “I will drown the maker. We will see now whether I’m the Kwisatz Haderach…”
Man, last week was nuts, but I've got a wee little bit of quiet time here before winging off to the east coast later this week…
The trouble with the Harkonnens. They are rather on the Whipley Snidelash end of the spectrum, aren't they. It doesn't really take all that much to see that none of them are all that bright. Dangerous, but unfocused. There's a couple things Herbert might've been thinking with this.
For one, they're not really the main Big Bad, are they? The scene with the Baron and Fenring bears that out a little. They're just one of the Emperor's chess pieces in the bigger picture.
On another hand, the Harkonnens have always seemed, to me, to be the poster case for the evils of royal inbreeding, and an example of the kind of thing stagnation in humanity brings about.
(Semi-related: I've always been a little bothered with the fact that the character of the Baron was made to be outwardly homosexual in a universe that otherwise doesn't really acknowledge it much. I'd like to think it's not a case of homosexuality == evil, and more as just a simple way to show his specific character's hedonistic depravity which… isn't really better, at least with 2009 eyes. Obviously you have to take into account when it was actually written, though, so it doesn't stop me from loving the book, but.)
Isn't it in a way that the harkonnen's are rather a little chaotic animal in the emperor's Zoo and universe, where the real bad guys are thinking in aeons; the hark's tendency towards instantaneous pleasure counterbalances the potential for plans within plans, as there is no real patience involved.
… a trait that is much more powerful in Bene Gesserit or Tleilaxu plans much later in the Saga.
Oh man, the Harkonnens. I still look at them as the Atreides minus discipline and training. Don't wanna spoil anything, but comparing Paul and Feyd becomes pretty important later. Also, as far as being bad guys, I have to agree with the general consensus – yes, they definitely seem like the type to curl their mustache as they accidentally walk into a pratfall, but that just exposes how they aren't the real bad guys. They're just used by the more powerful (and aeon-minded, as Dekay said) forces as a puppet, and as a target to give to any sort of Atreides reprisal. Too bad the Atreides saw through that from the beginning.
Also, Fenring – yeah, he creeps me out. WAY more dangerous than the Harkonnens – he calmly accepts that his wife is going to go seduce Feyd as part of the larger plan. Anyone with that sort of emotional control and lack of personal attachment, bent on doing evil, will most certainly succeed in that evil. Thus, terrifying.
About the scene with Jessica taking the Water of Life: totally not mystical. She clearly describes how she changes the chemical composition of the poison, molecule by molecule. Herbert makes it clear this is a chemical means of accessing knowledge and power. Still no less awesome, because the results are the same, but it's pretty cut-and-dry science fiction, not mysticism.
Finally, Paul. One thing that I really easily forget, for several reasons, is how young Paul is. Between seeing both the film and Sci-Fi mini-series since last reading Dune, and the incredibly adult inner voice Herbert gives Paul, I always seem to think of him as an adult. But in the general interactions with the Fremen (them calling him a child-man, and new characters being shocked by the news that he beats Jamis because of his age) we get reminders of how young he is: 15. FIFTEEN!!! He's still going through puberty! This is where it really hits me – Paul has visions of a romantic life with Chani before he ever even sees the girl, and so that future life collides in his mind with their initial meeting, at which point, since he's only fifteen, part of Paul is thinking "Girl. Girl. Girl." I try to think about everything Paul is coping with, these future visions, the idea that he could be the cause of a massacre of millions of people across the universe, and then add being 15 and dealing with feelings about girls, and my mind just collapses. I feel like Herbert does a good job of bringing back to the forefront just how insane Paul's experiences are by bringing Chani into the story, since teenage attraction is a much more tangible experience for readers than prescience and universal jihad.
Wedge–I also interpret the Baron's sexuality as being written as a negative trait rather than just a trait gone wild in excess. He has some other somewhat homophobic ideas in God Emperor of Dune, specifically the ideas of the all-female "Fish Speaker" army, and why an all-female army is superior to an all or partly male army. Weird ideas.
Also, I would point out that, while yeah the Harkonnens are an example of inbreeding, so is Paul–the Baron is his grandfather after all. And who else in his line? We see that these things are controlled in large part by the Bene Gesserit.
Third–I don't at all think that Fenring is "evil," any more so than any other character with their own set of plans, acting upon them. In fact, he's the ONLY character in the book, with the possible exception of Stilgar, who seems close to standing toe-to-toe with Paul in terms of being self-actualizing. Stilgar eventually becomes a satellite of Paul's, as Fenring is a satellite of the Emperor. And of course, by the book's finish we find that Paul and Fenring have more in common. Interesting character in a lot of ways–it's like Herbert put a lot of ideas into him just in case, but never had occasion to use any of them.
Oh and–it's not so much that the poison-change is the mystical part–it's the fact that the Reverend Mother Ramallo pours a succession of past lives from her consciousness into Jessica's–and by extension, into the unborn daughter. Does this transference really happen from mind to mind? Or through the poison itself? Hard to peg this as science and not some spiritual movement.
DH: He mentions that the changed Water of Life connects and opens up everyone there to each other (Jessica later refers to it as almost- but not quite- a hive mentality. So the poison/drug itself is having something like a telepathic effect on the users. Though this is something that the Bene Gesserit do, and Herbert kind of makes it sound like the Water of Life is a Fremen thing, and we never are told what the Bene Gesserit use to achive the same elsewhere.
The actual transfer gets used quite a bit in later books, and it's really the one thing that most closely approaches magic in the series. I personally think it's meant as one of the evolutionary human enhancements they've made over 10,000 years. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," after all, only the technology in this case is genetics.
These are all great points.
Count Fenring is terrifying in his self-control. I don't know if it's a matter of the reader projecting how he/she/I might react to such experiences (the noted example of allowing his wife to seduce Feyd comes to mind) and realizing the emotions he's keeping in check or just the overall tension of the scenes, but the tension is palpable. His speech pattern also adds to this feeling of anxiety surrounding his scenes with the Baron. I can't really put my finger on it, but reading it the way it's written, with all the pauses and "mmmmmm" added to my emotional response to these scenes, probably because the dialogue is being delayed with all these mumblings. Fenring is a great character.
I just considered it as I read through the posts. My oldest son is only a year younger than Paul. The weight of the world on my boy's shoulders? that thought is almost debilitating. Now, as I continue reading, I'll have that touchstone in my head. I'm curious how that will affect my reading from here on.
some thoughts I had while reading this week:
The weight of decision is heavy on Paul. He's able to see the outcome of his ascendancy ending with blood spread across the universe beneath the green Atreides banner. He is continually wrestling with himself, with what he's seen in his possible futures, with choices he makes – worrying whether a wrong choice or a lack of decision will hasten this outcome, cause the death of his friends (Gurney is alive in some of his futures), or will exacerbate an already uncared for future.
And yet, as Paul is trying to avert the jihad he's seen, his mother is thinking of how to turn the Fremen into a fighting force to get Paul back his Dukedom. Earlier, Paul is angered at his mother for making him what he is (by having him instead of a daughter, by her training of him) and even now, though he seems to be unaware of it, she is trying to form him, and form this fighting force. She is the one pushing Paul toward this jihad.
Both Paul and Jessica are trying to manipulate the legend planted on Arrakis by the Bene Gesserit to help them survive. But they are also manipulated (and, subsequently manipulating) within this context through actions they do unthinkingly or within which they are interrupted and misunderstood. Examples of this would be Paul "giving water to the dead" at Jamis's service – a natural reaction for Paul, a legendary one from the POV of the Fremen OR when Jessica first meets the Shadout Mapes, is asked about the crysknife, beings to answer it is "the maker of death" but is interrupted by Mapes after she only says "the maker," which is an important sign for these Fremen seeking this legend. The legend was fabricated by the Bene Gesserit, and yet it's all coming true anyway.
Dharbin, thanks for correcting me: Fenring is not evil, and that is definitely not a word I should have used. I got excited and went on a rant, because Fenring does scare me as a character, and so ended up calling him evil. I have to make sure I don't give in to using the labels I first used when I read Dune, because at that time I was 12, and so everyone had to be either Good or Evil. Those impressions are still strong in my mind, and I constantly have to correct myself about it as I read it again now.
Also, about the scientific/mystical nature of the Water of Life and prescience: this is what I meant a while ago about reason and mysticism pushing and challenging each other. Here we're starting to get to the border between the two. Jessica's inner experience initially is a very scientific one, seeing the Water of Life on a molecular level inside of him. And yet, the things that follow, seeing back into the endless corridor of Reverend Mothers, communing with the consciousness of her daughter, these things are incredibly mystical. It reminds me of the Neal Stephenson book The Confusion, the second part of the Baroque Cycle, where the fictional version of the philosopher Leibniz is taking about atoms and monads. (Btw if I actually was familiar with Leibniz' philosophy, I would just cite that, but as it is, I have to take it from a novel). Leibniz (the fictional version) talks about how understanding the movement of the basic particles of the universe allows you to know their future, and so if you were able to follow the movement of every single particle in the universe, you would know everything, and you would be God. Essentially, there is no barrier between scientific knowledge and divine power, only a difference of degrees. I see the same sort of thing with Jessica moving the particles. I don't think that Reverend Mothers are supposed to be able to understand molecular movement on any grand or divine scale, but I do think that their power and their knowledge does come from a similar place. I would just say that the science behind their power is so great, that you could flip a coin and call it science or mysticism, and at this point either one would be correct.
Hm, interesting. Did you read Stephenson's latest, Anathem? Super hard to get into at first (for me) but one of the most rewarding of his books, says I. Basically the book is about quantum realities, people existing across worlds, etc. Amazing stuff, I'm pretty sure I only understood about 10% of it.
I'll break my rule again and teleport forward to talk in terms of the whole series of books. I think Herbert LATER retrofits this idea of a multi-consciousness to be purely genetic in nature, not mystical at all. For instance, a later character with this awareness can bring up memories going all the way back to the Trojan War and beyond, not mystically, but because his cells contain a record of all those people genetically. Or rather, his cells contain those persons' lives UP TO the moment of conception, when the line for that person is broken as a new line begins.
But in this book, and again at the climax of Dune Messiah, this event is described in murky terms like "simpatico" and characters are communing across empty space with each other, which to me just stresses my suspension of disbelief. For me part of the role of a sci-fi writer, or of any writer expounding upon ideas larger than existing experience, is not so much to SELL the idea to an audience, but at least to sort of shepherd them through it. The better thought out that idea is, the easier it is for the writer to reveal enough of that idea's shape that the reader can intuit the rest–thus suspending disbelief. In many cases I think imagination supplants reason to the point that the reader is left to just presume that a thing "happened," creating a point at which you either believe or do not in a particular thing.
For me, especially in sci-fi, where you are regularly asked to accept ideas that can be somewhat fanciful, the less you have to presume on faith, the easier it is for a story to stand on its own. For instance, I think Dune works best on its thematic levels, especially the first novel. You don't need to accept a bunch of lasers and space battles and aliens with eyes on stalks in order to "get" the themes in the book: self-actualization, ecology/sociology, control, etc. But where the later books really fail for me is in an increasing reliance upon ideas which depend upon earlier ideas which depend upon earlier ideas… eventually the stories become about themselves, and our ability to identify things as being useful or relevant to our own lives is diminished.
I'm super late to this week's discussion and I too have raced ahead so it's tough to remember what went on in this chunk. I'll say one thing – one of the images I drew was about the way Herbert describes Paul's visions of the future – like a wave with peaks an valleys. it's also like the landscape that Paul was in when he first had the visions – a sea of sand dunes.
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