DUNE BOOK CLUB :: Week 04!
Oh my goodness, how the time has flown--here we are at Week Four already, as the leaves fall around us and the Halloween decorations are whisked away in favor of Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, the many shelves of Christmas bric-a-brac lie waiting in the shadows, already sending outliers among us, annexing as much of the month of November as they can with their witchy Christmas ways.
Wait what was I talking about?
Guys, I was sick this week, and I confess that I read far ahead in the book. I've been trying to ONLY read the parts we focus on each week, to focus my brain powers on just that part. It may be because of this that this week I'm even more inclined than normal to view the present chapters in the larger context of the story. Although it IS the beginning of the more action-packed portion of the book, and the real beginning of Paul's genesis, as we will see later.
The thing that interests me most about this part of the book, and indeed, about the entire book and the series it spawned, is its approach to the idea of prescience. For me, prescience in Dune is an analog for the idea of the power of the human mind. As I've said before, I'm almost religiously interested in this idea of the human mind as an object of real power and possibility.
On the other hand, I'm pretty UNinterested in mysticism, at least when it comes to my humanism. So the idea of Paul Atreides having some sort of mystical spirit visions, for me, would utterly destroy any suspension of disbelief I could bring to this story, and thus to many of the ideas embedded in it. But I just want to point out that Frank Herbert is always careful to describe this prescience in terms of its possibility--there's never a sense that Paul just "sees" things, especially as an artifice to move the plot along.
Herbert describes Paul's prescience in terms of its limitations--"He remembered once seeing a gauze kerchief blowing in the wind and now he sensed the future as though it twisted across some surface as undulant and impermanent as that of the windblown kerchief." It's not that Paul SEES the future, he sees probabilities, something we all can do to some extent. Our brains are constantly collecting and storing data, the great majority of which we are never directly cognizant of. When we talk about a "gut feeling" or a "best guess," our bodies are sifting through this data, the collected memories and minutiae of our lives, and--dare I say, in Mentat fashion--producing a calculation.
What Paul sees, this shifting landscape--as shifting as oh say, a series of sand dunes?--of the future, is no different. In Dune, Paul's mind is more highly trained, and supposedly more GENETICALLY predisposed to this sort of operation. Paul is not just the protagonist of THIS story; he's in a way the protagonist of humanity, of this boiling race consciousness he keeps sensing inside of him. The way this idea--of humanity evolving toward points of singularity, followed by enormous explosions of war and gene-mixing--informs the other books is pretty fascinating, although some of those more idea-laden books can be hard to read.
Okay--lots to do today, so I have to cut this headscratch-fest short. But a couple of points for discussion, what say?
--JESSICA: Whoa-ho, we begin to see some of the Bene Gesserit abilities, yes? Again, note that there is nothing mystical at all about it--Jessica is someone highly trained for very specific purposes. The idea of the Voice being merely a system of sonic manipulation of a person's deep brain functions is just amazing.
--PLANS WITHIN PLANS: I am always impressed with authors who are able to take noble, likable characters, and make them do foolish or represhensible things. Thufir Hawat, first in his suspicions of Jessica and later in many other ways, is one of my favorite characters for this reason. Such a challenge.
--QUESTION: Speaking of pathos, what if anything was accomplished by the Duke's death? Think about it, then discuss.
--TENSION: In close-reading these chapters, I noticed for the first time that ALL of the Harkonnen scenes are dripping with tension and danger, without exception. There is no shred of trust or comfort between any of those characters, friend or foe. Whereas most of the Atreides scenes, certainly in the earlier portions of the book, are reflective; characters are discussing ideas or plans, there is not the same idea that the scene could quickly turn to violence at any time.
--PAUL'S CHANGE: is a scene that's not as exciting when you first read it, but I return to it in my thoughts often throughout the book. I have a religious background, and it is very VERY easy for me to see Paul's change in those terms, like that other Paul on the road to Damascus.
Okay! For next Monday, read from the beginning of Part II ("Muad'dib") to the end of the chapter that ends "All of them, she thought, an entire culture trained to military order. What a priceless thing is here for an outcast Duke!"
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