So, I'm getting started on reading Dune right now. I'll post snippets as I progress. Everyone is invited to this caravan. Especially the loveable trolls and spec fic haters.
Greentexting to quote is slightly cumbersome, so I'll be using another convention to quote. Be warned, there may be spoilers ahead, which I may fail to enclose in shrouding tags.
「DUNE
A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the
balances are correct. This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows. To
begin your study of the life of Muad‘Dib, then, take care that you first
place him in his time: born in the 57th year of the Padishah Emperor,
Shaddam IV. And take the most special care that you locate Muad’Dib
in his place: the planet Arrakis. Do not be deceived by the fact that he
was bom on Caladan and lived his first fifteen years there. Arrakis, the
planet known as Dune, is forever his place.
-from “Manual of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan」
>>7737943
Dune seems like one of those books i could read in a day. I'm saving it for my simple winter years when I'm constantly shitting myself.
>>7737950
It is, having a rather restrained vocabulary--disregarding Arabic-influenced terms that are subconsciously to be slowly absorbed. But I'm trying to savor the experience, as one of my closest friends is strongly influenced by it.
Chances are, this thread may take upwards of a moon cycle to conclude. Unfortunately, I have to work to make a living.
>Inside Paul's mind
「Paul sensed his own tensions, decided to practice one of the mind-body
lessons his mother had taught him. Three quick breaths triggered the
responses: he fell into the floating awareness ... focusing the consciousness
... aortal dilation ... avoiding the unfocused mechanism of consciousness ...
to be conscious by choice ... blood enriched and swift-flooding the overload
regions ... one does not obtain food-safety-freedom by instinct alone ...
animal consciousness does not extend beyond the given moment nor into the
idea that its victims may become extinct ... the animal destroys and does not
produce ... animal pleasures remain close to sensation levels and avoid the
perceptual ... the human requires a background grid through which to see his
universe ... focused consciousness by choice, this forms your grid ... bodily
integrity follows nerve-blood flow according to the deepest awareness of
cell needs ... all things/cells/beings are impermanent ... strive for flow-
permanence within....」
「“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings
total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and
through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its
path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. ”」
I think it's amusing that fear is described as little death, since the French for "little death" is slang for orgasm.
The witch repeatedly exclaims "Kull Wahad!". I just checked up other interpretations of the phrase as meaning "I am profoundly stirred!", but derivation-wise, I feel its a contraction of a phrase from the Quran: "Qul huwa Allahu ahad" (God is the one and only). As religious phrases tend to meme to meaninglessness
I started this thread since Dune seems to have a strong but understated presence on the internet. But almost nobody I know seem to have read it.
>Rite of passage/It's My Hand in a Box
His world emptied of everything except that hand immersed in agony, the
ancient face inches away staring at him.
His lips were so dry he had difficulty separating them.
The burning! The burning!
He thought he could feel skin curling black on that agonized hand, the
flesh crisping and dropping away until only charred bones remained.
It stopped!
As though a switch had been turned off, the pain stopped.
>Sand people
“You did that to my mother once?”
“Ever sift sand through a screen?” she asked.
The tangential slash of her question shocked his mind into a higher
awareness: Sand through a screen. He nodded.
“We Bene Gesserit sift people to find the humans.”
>These aren't the droids you're looking for
“ ‘Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man’s mind,’ ” Paul
quoted.
“Right out of the Butlerian Jihad and the Orange Catholic Bible,” she said.
>>7738173
>Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man’s mind
Sounds like the litany to CAPTCHA
Dune is LotR except everybody's stoned and overthinks everything.
Basically nothing happens in the story but it becomes an "epic" with the characters stretching out what they should rat for breakfast into a thirty page psychedelic experience
Any Dune fans around? Who would be a good director for a proper Dune adaptation?
Also, what does anyone think about the state of the novel's legacy, especially in lieu the newest Star Wars film?
「“Now, lad, do you know
about the Truthsayer drug?”
...
“The drug’s dangerous,” she said, “but it gives insight. When a
Truthsayer’s gifted by the drug, she can look many places in her memory—
in her body’s memory. ... ”
Her voice took on a note of sadness. “Yet, there’s a
place where no Truthsayer can see. We are repelled by it, terrorized. It is
said a man will come one day and find in the gift of the drug his inward eye.
He will look where we cannot—into both feminine and masculine pasts.”
“Your Kwisatz Haderach?”
“Yes, the one who can be many places at once: the Kwisatz Haderach.
Many men have tried the drug ... so many, but none has succeeded.”
“They tried and failed, all of them?”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “They tried and died.”」
The Force is a pretty myth. I like that psychical power in Dune has stricter limitations in usage.
>>7737943
>translating dune
>>7739841
JJ Abrams is attached to the SW franchise, and it would be unexpected of him to work with the material that inspired SW in the first place.
David Bowie's son directed Moon and the upcoming Warcraft movie, I don't see why he couldn't direct an epic science fiction film. There's also Christopher Nolan, who did a pretty good job on movies appealing to geeks.
>>7739841
...But the one with Sting was actually a good movie and a fairly faithful adaptation of the book. Yes, a lot of shit was cut but that's book movies for you.
Anyways, do not, DO NOT read the new books. 1-6 is all that is worth reading, everything past those is just fanfic written by a young adult author.
God, there are few things in my life I'd legitimately consider taking back, but reading the end of the last KJA dune book was one of them. It was literally like his publisher mailed him the morning of and said "WE NEED THIS DONE BY TO FUCKING DAY, GET IT FINISHED SO WE CAN SHIP IT OUT!"
>>7740066
Thank you, my friend actually told me not to read the continuation novels, so confirmatory advice is much obliged.
If it's of any consolation, now that you've read the Dune official fanfics, you know many ways of what not to do, if you write professionally. I felt the same way about the Belgariad novels, though at least Belgariad was like a tour of fantasy conventions.
Dune is my favorite series. Dune mesiah was so epic. Fuck the last one was really kick ass too. Why did he died. Left us on a serious cliffhanger fuck.
I also don't think dune can be made into a movie. To much shit going on in people's minds. To much thinking takes place. How do you film the gom jobbar (sp)
>>7739841
I think Jodorowsky would do a good job of it.
Better to read Dune when you're still young.
It starts to get an acrid taste in your mouth, when you recall how duped western intellectuals were by Islam and Sufism in particular around the 50s and 60s. They were seen as peaceful spiritual alternatives to the bloody and false Christian doctrine that had dominated that part of the world for so long.
To a modern reader Paul's jihad against the Soviet/German Harkonnen and general Islami-deification rising in position to Sultan of the Universe should be a scary thought. Since this is what contemporary Islam wants to do, aggressively colonize the planet under Shariah and Allah.
Herbert could not have foreseen the future, but terrorists hijacking the world's oil supply and bending corrupt falling empires to their whim, that should give everyone uncomfortable pause.
>>7737943
>Klit
Really foregrounds the vagina dentata
>>7740479
Although I'd prefer this thread not to devolve to religious bickering, I don't think most Westerners gave credence to Islam being a peaceful religion. Christendom and Islam have been entangled in fisticuffs since medieval times. If people saw Islam as a way to peace, it's because naive idealists thought ending the Ottoman caliphate left Western Asia an nonthreatening castrato.
>>7740513
I think they felt Islam as a whole represented
>the last noble savage defending himself against encroaching colonial expansionists,
>willfully ignored or passed off it's schisms and violent history as skewed by the conquerors,
>and accepted Sufism openly as the spiritual peaceful arm of the religion.
It was a three pronged attack really,
>can you trust the Jesuits who recorded medieval history,
>can you side with rapacious imperial powers over native people defending their autonomy,
>can you reject a benign spiritualism with teaching and education at its core.
Irresistible no's for many liberated free thinking intellectuals.
There is some respect warranted for a people who were so brutally savaged by the Mongols and still persisted. The genocide on the Islamic people and religion in the 1200s is really unparalleled to anything else in history.
I know this is hard to believe in our modern context, when a lie is exploded instantly due to our free access to information. Mujahideen, Freedom Fighters, Guerrilla Resistance they used to be called. Now they are Rebel Forces, Islamic Militants and Terrorists. Their goals, beliefs or motivations have not really changed in the past 60 years. Kill jews, spread Islam through Shariah, resist occupation.
>>7740479
>western intellectuals
I hardly think that was a major thing. The majority trend has pretty consistently been demonising Islam, at least since Israel was founded.
Also, I haven't noticed any Sufi terrorists.
>>7740733
>any Sufi terrorists
>>7740479
>>7740902
The state of world international relations upsets me, but I accept it as a natural progression of previous events, and look forward to the chance of a better future. Growing up in the 90s, I've always had elders who were able to articulate clearly different sides of political circumstances, so I've never really been able to take things at face value. Especially proposed solutions that ignore unavoidable contingencies.
At the root of Islam, the Muhammad story is clearly sanitized, and his policy making was clearly hypocritical, since he, a.) Advised Muslims to be reserved in conversation in the presence of kuffar; b.) As a trader, undoubtedly leaned over the shoulder of many a conversation across thousands of kilometers; c.) Advised Muslims to seek knowledge, even if it be in China. There are also unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that suggest Muhammad's inner circle turned on him toward the end of his life, due to political tensions, and yet preserved his chaste persona to retain the efficacy of Islam as a unifying force. Contrasting any number of hypocritical saviors to traditionalist views of Islam, and I can empathize with emotions like despair, but they aren't emotions that I've experienced directly.
>Paul's watery dream
「“Tell me truly now, Paul, do
you often have dreams of things that happen afterward exactly as you
dreamed them?”
“Yes. And I’ve dreamed about that girl before.”
“Oh? You know her?”
“I will know her.”
“Tell me about her.” ... she says: ‘Tell me about the waters of your homeworld,
Usul.’ ” Paul opened his eyes. “Isn’t that strange? My homeworld’s
Caladan. I’ve never even heard of a planet called Usul.”
“Is there more to this dream?” Jessica prompted.
“Yes. But maybe she was calling me Usul,” Paul said. “I just thought of
that.” Again, he closed his eyes. “She asks me to tell her about the waters.
And I take her hand. And I say I’ll tell her a poem. And I tell her the poem,
but I have to explain some of the words—like beach and surf and seaweed
and seagulls.”」
>The witch plays it safe with dream interpretation, or, "I see through the lies of the jidaigeki subtitles"
「She talks of hints, Paul thought. She doesn’t really know anything. ...
“We’re not here to bandy words or quibble over their meaning,” the old
woman said. “The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is
many willows—a wall against the wind. This is the willow’s purpose.”
Paul stared at her. She said purpose and he felt the word buffet him,
reinfecting him with terrible purpose. He experienced a sudden anger at her:
fatuous old witch with her mouth full of platitudes.」
>>7737943
I saw you reading this on your lunch the other day.
>>7742251
Lol, that wasn't me. I read genre fiction in my office, and sometimes literary fiction in the cafeteria (a broader net to catch conversation). Nice hearing about other readers though!
Speaking of eating:
>Hail the Harkonnen
「The Baron moved out and away from the globe of Arrakis. As he
emerged from the shadows, his figure took on dimension—grossly and
immensely fat. And with subtle bulges beneath folds of his dark robes to
reveal that all this fat was sustained partly by portable suspensors harnessed
to his flesh. He might weigh two hundred Standard kilos in actuality, but his
feet would carry no more than fifty of them.
...
[From earlier:]
“Is it not a magnificent thing that I, the Baron
Vladimir Harkonnen, do?”」
>Four Pillars of Leadership
「And the old woman had waved Jessica to silence,
looked down at Paul. “Grave this on your memory, lad: A world is supported
by four things....” She held up four big-knuckled fingers. “... the learning of
the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor
of the brave. But all of these are as nothing....” She closed her fingers into a
fist. “... without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. Make that the science
of your tradition!”」
As usual, moralizers are hypocrites.
>>7740784
I probably stand corrected (haven't looked into it but I'd trust anon with my life).
>>7740902
>>7742530
Sufis have a dual reputation for spirituality and being ferocious warriors. Right now they're being persecuted in Iran, but 20,000 whirling dervishes are waiting underground.
>>7739841
I don't honestly see Dune being summarized in 2-3 hours.
The mini-series did the best it could to remain true to the source material, but without character internalization, the themes would be tough (if not impossible) to portray.
>>7737943
>he was betrayed by his
>it betrayed his
>she was betrayed by her
Fuck Dune is awful. Someone post the obligatory image.
It had a lot of potential as a good sci-fi story but everything fell apart with the meaningless symbolism.
>The Atreides arrive on Dune
「Jessica stood in the center of the hall. She moved in a slow turn, looking
up and around at shadowed carvings, crannies and deeply recessed
windows. ... Here, all was bleak stone.
Some architect had reached far back into history for these buttressed
walls and dark hangings, she thought. The arched ceiling stood two stories
above her with great crossbeams she felt sure had been shipped here to
Arrakis across space at monstrous cost. No planet of this system grew trees
to make such beams—unless the beams were imitation wood.」
>At a market
「A weird cry sounded from the road outside the house. It was repeated:
“Soo-soo-Sook! Soo-soo-Sook!” Then: “Ikhut-eigh! Ikhut-eigh!” And again:
“Soo-soo-Sook!”
“What is that?” Jessica asked. “I heard it several times as we drove
through the streets this morning.”
“Only a water-seller, my Lady. But you’ve no need to interest yourself in
such as they. The cistern here holds fifty thousand liters and it’s always kept
full.”
...
she found the thought unsettling that water was a major
mark of wealth here.」
Jessica's ethical sense isn't written as gracefully as other stories I've read, but it's enough to convince me that she's a noble person, just as the market scene is enough to convince me the planet has a developed culture. The idea of hydraulic despotism is a very real possibility on our planet, and the thought of it fills me with disgust.
The architectural description was sparser than I expected. Maybe it was intended to take its form in the reader's imagination, which reminds me of a philosophical thought: "Unlike the works of the other fine arts, those of architecture are very rarely executed for purely aesthetic purposes. On the contrary, they are subordinated to other, practical ends that are foreign to art itself. ... [T]he artistic arrangement of water. For what architecture achieves for ... rigidity, is the same as what this other art achieves for ... fluidity, in other words, with formlessness, maximum mobility, and transparency." But the description of this palace, thus far, was utterly transparent for the reader, and in that sense it was more like water than stone.
>>7740066
It's his son and an author friend.
I read them and I thought it was fun getting their take on the universe.
Certainly should not be considered to be anything officially related, though.
>>7740479
>Better to read Dune when you're still young.
I did not enjoy Dune on my first read-through years ago.
I want to give it another chance, but I'm waiting on a used copy of Messiah to show up.
Uhh. The crysknife scenes were unexpectedly hot. Two women sharing a blade. Not to mention its keeping place.
「Slowly, Mapes reached into the neck of her dress, brought out a dark
sheath. A black handle with deep finger ridges protruded from it. She took
sheath in one hand and handle in the other, withdrew a milk-white blade, held
it up. The blade seemed to shine and glitter with a light of its own. It was
double-edged like a kindjal and the blade was perhaps twenty centimeters
long.
“Do you know this, my Lady?” Mapes asked.
It could only be one thing, Jessica knew, the fabled crysknife of Arrakis,
the blade that had never been taken off the planet, and was known only by
rumor and wild gossip.
“It’s a crysknife,” she said.
“Say it not lightly,” Mapes said. “Do you know its meaning?”
And Jessica thought: There was an edge to that question. Here’s the
reason this Fremen has taken service with me, to ask that one question. My
answer could precipitate violence or ... what? She seeks an answer from
me: the meaning of a knife. She’s called the Shadout in the Chakobsa
tongue. Knife, that’s “Death Maker” in Chakobsa.
...
Mapes returned knife to sheath, said: “This is an unfixed blade, my Lady.
Keep it near you. More than a week away from flesh and it begins to
disintegrate. It’s yours, a tooth of shai-hulud, for as long as you live.”」
>>7743552
Fucking Kevin J Anderson
>Fuck him, stop letting him into your science fiction franchises
>>7743552
Fun is a neurological trick, it does not belong in literature.
There are so many subtle allusions and cultural borrowings, I really don't know where to start to unwrap them all. I know there's a decent body of criticism for writers like Gibson and Wolfe.
Does anyone know of a critical companion for Dune/Frank Herbert? Links and articles would be appreciated too.
>Atreides Enterprises, Now Hiring
「[Duke Leto:] “ ... Before the shuttle leaves, you must persuade some
of those men to enlist with us.”
...
“... We particularly need spice drivers, weather scanners,
dune men—any with open sand experience.”
[Halleck:] “I understand, Sire. ‘They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup
up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity of the sand.’ ”
“A very moving quotation,” the Duke said.」
Had to google it; the quote is Habakkuk 1:9.
>The Duke mans the f up, in face of the economy
「Halleck led the file of men into the room ...
“There’s coffee for those who want it,” the Duke said.
... He waited while coffee was brought in from
the adjoining room and served, noting the tiredness in some of the faces.
Presently, he put on his mask of quiet efficiency, stood up and
commanded their attention with a knuckle rap against the table.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “our civilization appears to’ve fallen so deeply
into the habit of invasion that we cannot even obey a simple order of the
Imperium without the old ways cropping up.”
Dry chuckles sounded around the table, and Paul realized that his father
had said the precisely correct thing in precisely the correct tone to lift the
mood here. Even the hint of fatigue in his voice was right.」
>Recontext with another sf novel
「“ ‘I have been a stranger in a strange land,’ ” Halleck quoted.
Paul stared at him, recognizing the quotation from the O.C. Bible」
Easier quote; Exodus 2:22. Even the numeration makes mnemonics unnecessary.
>We get it, Halleck
「He looked at Halleck. “Gurney, take care of that
smuggler situation first.”
“‘I shall go unto the rebellious that dwell in the dry land,’ ” Halleck
intoned.
“Someday I’ll catch that man without a quotation and he’ll look
undressed,” the Duke said.」
I was personally worried that Halleck is suffering from a mental disorder. Maybe I am, as well.
>>7739841
After seeing Jupiter Ascending's aesthetic, I thought that the Wachowskis would do a great thing; the thing is that they will completely fuck up the ideologic message of the books with their new age bullshit. I think Jodorowsky's Dune, after seeing thee documentary and reading a lot of jodo's works, would have been awesome, but not Dune: like he says, he wanted it to be a _prophet movie_ for the youth, and Paul's initiation was fascinating when I read Dune for the first time in highschool, but Jodorowsky's ideals are too mystical and esoteric compared to Herbert's philosophy, mainly influenced by Jung's works.
1/5th of the book finished.
>Vision of Saviors
「On that first day when Muad‘Dib rode through the streets of
Arrakeen with his family, some of the people along the way recalled
the legends and the prophecy and they ventured to shout: “Mahdi!” But
their shout was more a question than a statement, for as yet they could
only hope he was the one foretold as the Lisan al-Gaib, the Voice from
the Outer World. Their attention was focused, too, on the mother,
because they had heard she was a Bene Gesserit and it was obvious to
them that she was like the other Lisan al-Gaib.
—from “Manual of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan」
>>7747220
Dune: Messiah is my favourite and amazing character study. It transcends genre fiction into the realm of classic literature imo.
