DUNE BOOK CLUB :: WEEK 05!
I'm seeing a lot of things upon this rereading that are resonating differently than on earlier readings, due mainly to considering them more closely as part of the Book Club.
Chief among these is the way Herbert embeds things in his characters dialogue. Less in an expositional way, although he does that sometimes too in the early parts of the book, occasionally to dulling effect; Herbert often uses dialogue as a stand-in for other ideas in the story, sometimes combat, and sometimes as an analog for larger thematic ideas.
The one I'm thinking of in particular is the conversation between Thufir Hawat and the leader of the Fremen band he finds himself sheltering with, after the Atreides forces are decimated and driven from Arrakeen. Half the conversation or more is spent with Hawat struggling to divine what the conversation is about, with violence always just beneath the surface. And remember that Hawat is an educated man, a man whose counsel and devious mind are much sought after--but thrown into the idiomatic swamp of the Fremen's questions about what to do with his wounded, he's utterly lost, struggling to stay afloat at best.
above, by Evan Dahm
And of course, so are most of the characters, who just a few chapters ago were enjoying their fancy dinner party, throwing their conversational jabs and ripostes back and forth across the table. In the conversation between Thufir Hawat and his Fremen rescuer, we see the Fremen as less an esoteric tribe and more a FORCE, just as much as the planet they've adapted to live on is a force. Imagine the idea of removing all the water from a comrade's body SO YOU COULD DRINK IT; but also imagine that this is the shape of your new world, and the first of many such surprises.
Ditto Paul and Jessica, trying to outrun sandworms and dig themselves out from sandstorms, also encountering for the first time the planet as such. This is the point in the story, in the many times I have exhorted people I know to read Dune, where if you don't like it yet you never will--from this point forward, the status quo is destroyed for every character. This for me makes the somewhat duller opening chapters less egregious in retrospect, because while the story starts slow, the characters are also drawn so clearly that, when everything changes we really feel the drama; we've gotten use to who these people are. On the other side of this change we can't be sure what will happen. Witness the way Herbert writes that whole careful conversation between Hawat and the Fremen, only to kill practically everybody a few pages later.
above, by Warren Craghead
But the best thing about this part of the book is the clash of cultures and legends when Paul and Jessica finally encounter Stilgar and the Fremen of Sietch Tabr. Remember that, for all Herbert's other explanations, he never really goes into real depth regarding the Bene Gesserit and what they are able to do. We know at this point about Voice, but I remember reading this the first time and being all "Whoa!" when Jessica is kung fu-ing people left and right. The interactions between her and the Fremen legends of the Lisan al Gaib are my favorite Jessica scenes in the book, seeing her restless intellect weighing options in crisis, making choices based on severely limited information.
As opposed to her son, making choices with his strange, cloudy prescience; Jessica is doing a similar thing except with far less information. But also a much reduced scope--Jessica's decisions are involved in moments, while Paul seems to fear momentum more than anything else. Such a good spot in the story, and the next one's even better!
Speaking of which: for next week read to the end of Part Two ("Muad'dib"). I think after that we'll have two more weeks worth of reading, in around 75-100 page a week chunks.
:: Comment