Dune Re-Read, Part 8

Why hello! We are back at it! Time for some Dune! Hope you are ready to hang out with some smelly Fremen for a while… and then some gingers but you don’t have to like the gingers… (Personally I love gingers. I swear.)

Right so where were we?

Chapter 31: Paul and Jessica are totally trespassing and they don’t give f%@#

Prophecy and prescience—How can they be put to the test in the face of the unanswered questions? Consider: How much is actual prediction of the “wave form” (as Muad’Dib referred to his vision-image) and how much is the prophet shaping the future to fit the prophecy? What of the harmonics inherent in the act of prophecy? Does the prophet see the future or does he see a line of weakness, a fault or cleavage that he may shatter with words or decisions as a diamond-cutter shatters his gem with a blow of a knife?- “Private Reflections on Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

What Happens:

So, if you remember, Paul and Jessica have managed to escape the Harkonnen, cross some desert, outrun a worm and climb up into some sheltered cliffs where they come across a little oasis. Immediately upon entering this oasis they are confronted by unseen challengers. I’m excited because one of the voices calls the other ‘Stil’ and you should be excited too. Stilgar is awesome.

Some of the Fremen say that the intruders should be killed for their water, end of story. Paul recognizes Stilgar and reminds him of their acquaintance and the Fremen exchange of water from earlier in the novel. Stilgar reminds Paul that Duncan Idaho pretty much immediately abandoned this agreement to return to the Atreides and guard Jessica wander drunkenly around the Ducal Palace singing bawdy songs and refusing coffee.

This is going well.

Stilgar is willing to give the interlopers a chance to give some explanation, maybe Paul IS the Lissan al-Gaib? But Jessica? That coffee-loving bitch? Whatevs.

Oh crap Jessica, DO SOMETHING.

Long story short, Jessica starts kicking some ass. She orders Paul to go hide so he makes for the nearest crack and starts to climb it. On his way he encounters a Fremen who attacks him, Paul knocks him the fuck out and scampers. Meanwhile Jessica has moved on Stilgar and the poor guy never has a chance. She’s got him in a headlock/choke-hold and demands the rest of the Fremen just CHILL THE FUCK OUT. We’re all keeping our own water! The ease with which Jessica disarms Stilgar impresses him and he calls the Fremen off (with some difficulty). Favorite quote time, “Do as she says, you wormfaced, crawling, sand-brained piece of lizard turd!” Eloquent that Stilgar is.

After some more talking and posturing it is decided that in exchange for teaching the Fremen her Bene Gesserit battle techniques the Fremen will hide them. Jessica is for this because it beats being murdered and the Fremen hate the Harkonnen as much as she does, so there’s room for advancement.

Sweeeeet.

Meanwhile Paul is just hiding in the rocks. Lame. Super. Super LAME. Jessica even boasts to the rest of the Fremen that Paul won’t even come out of hiding unless she tells him to. Paul sits there like a boob until his mom gives him permission to move, which was useless anyways because Chani had been watching him the whole time and Stilgar had known exactly where he was because Paul made so much noise getting to his hiding spot.

Ninja he is not.

On his way down he encounters Chani and gets a prescient jolt. He has seen Chani in his dreams.  She is disdainful of him and is pretty pissed when Stilgar gives Chani the responsibility of babysitting Paul. Meanwhile, the guy that Paul knocked over comes to and tries to shake it off but he’s embarrassed and pretty pissed that some lickspittle water-fat offworlder just kicked the crap out of him in a few microseconds.

Ninja?

The Fremen grudgingly take Stilgar’s orders to accept Paul and Jessica as one of them for now, and the tribe moves on through the desert.

You guys! FREMEN! FINALLY!  Paul and Jessica have hooked up with the Fremen. Now we’re just a few rights of passage away from total epic revenge-time. Don’t shake your head, I know what you are here for. You are here for revenge and sexy Harkonnen fun-times.

No? Revenge, surely, at least!

It’s the best kind of revenge too. The “you killed my father prepare to die” revenge. Stabbity.

Jessica just continues to be totally bad ass. She’s beating up Fremen, she’s ordering Paul around, she’s continually thinking about how best to turn current events to Atreides’ favor. I want to be like her when I grow up. Except not as lonely.

Oh, that was sad. NEXT CHAPTER!

Chapter 32: Jessica very graciously agrees to not become a war lord.

The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called, “spannungsbogen”—which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.- from “The Wisdom of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

What Happens:

Continuing the events of the last chapter, the Fremen bring Jessica and Paul to a hiding place to wait out the day and any Harkonnen patrols. The Fremen are extremely disciplined, even going so far as to seal all the exits to this cave in order to preserve moisture. Stilgar says this will allow a relaxing of still suit discipline as well, which reminds us that the Fremen are not mindless fighting machines, but people.

Stilgar and Jessica go off together to have a heart to heart. Jessica realizes that having “whooped his ass” she has made him look bad. Fremen leadership is based on strength and wisdom of combat, but Stilgar assures her that he can handle any upstarts if they get ideas. He also reminds Jessica, that should she seek to take control over the Fremen that she will fail. Jessica is not a Fremen. This presents a problem for any future use of the Fremen and is perhaps the root of the late Duke’s inability to fully recruit the Fremen to his cause. Despite their common enemy, the Fremen are inclusive. Jessica realizes that she and Paul will need to become Fremen as well in order to use them. Up until this point there have been many signs that the Bene Gesserit have had their hands in shaping the Fremen’s religion. This seems to be standard practice with the Bene Gesserit. It seems every civilization has been subtly altered by past contact in order to prepare way for any future Sister in crisis to find a place amongst the religious order, thus securing her life and mission. Jessica uses set forms, incantations and attitudes to help guide the Fremen in accepting her and Paul. Stilgar mentions the prophecy of the Mahdi again, and though it doesn’t sit well with Jessica, she doesn’t deny that she and Paul are those mentioned in the prophecy.

Meanwhile, Paul is hanging out with Chani. He can hear his mother speaking with Stilgar but Chani has given him some heavily spiced food, so he has bigger problems than wondering if setting himself up as a messiah figure is the best idea. The amount of spice in the food has caused him to have a prescient “episode”. I call them episodes because until Paul learns to control it (or just gets used to it) these bouts of running his consciousness along the strands of time tend to make him a little catatonic. He is leaning against a wall having some sort of drugged out moment. He sees that this moment is critical for his own future, and that it is very possible that events will lead to his violent death.

This is one of those chapters where you spend a lot of time going over Herbert’s descriptions of Paul’s prescient abilities. It’s difficult to really wrap your head around. It just makes me stare at the abstract patterns that play on my itunes with a little bit more attention. Is this what it’s like? You try to find meaning in chaos? There’s talk of trinocular vision and threads and all that past descriptions of hills and valleys. I’ll leave that to the Kwisatz Haderach for now, but I love that Jessica is once again handling all the delicate stuff while Paul trips out in the corner.

Come on kid… figure it out!

Chapter 33: THUNDER DOME RULES APPLY IN THIS ONE!

My father, the Padishah Emperor, was 72 yet looked no more than 35 the year he encompassed the death of Duke Leto and gave Arrakis back to the Harkonnens. He seldom appeared in public wearing other than a Sardaukar uniform and a Burseg’s black helmet with the Imperial lion in gold upon its crest. The uniform was an open reminder of where his power lay. He was not always that blatant, though. When he wanted, he could radiate charm and sincerity, but I often wonder in these later days if anything about him was as it seemed. I think now he was a man fighting constantly to escape the bars of an invisible cage. You must remember that he was an emperor, father-head of a dynasty that reached back into the dimmest history. But we denied him a legal son. Was this not the most terrible defeat a ruler ever suffered? My mother obeyed her Sister Superiors where the Lady Jessica disobeyed. Which of them was the stronger? History already has answered. – “In My Father’s House” by the Princess Irulan

What Happens:

We are still following Paul and Jessica, because nothing interesting is happening anywhere else right now. The next evening when the Fremen all wake up and begin preparations for their final push to Seitch Tabr, home, the man Jamis who Paul knocked over two chapters ago, challenges Paul to a fight. He does it sneakily. It wouldn’t be honorable to want to kill a man just because he knocked you over, so he says he is challenging Jessica. According to the Prophecy, she will be challenged but she will have brought a protector with her to win her battles. This must mean Paul. So Jamis will get to fight Paul, while claiming he is merely testing the prophecy.

This awesome for us because all this talking and eating food nuggets and talking about water discipline is BORING. Bring on the blood!

In no time Paul and Jamis are stripped to their skivvies and ready to fight. Jessica is worried. She’s a mom after all and she tries to get Jamis to want to fight her instead by using the Voice on him and pretty much telling him that if she hurts her son she will torture him for eternity. Jamis is all “someone shut her up!” and Stilgar tells her that she can’t talk anymore because if Paul wins everyone will think it’s because Jessica cast a spell. I find this hilarious on Jessica’s part because you know shes’s thinking, “a spell….?” And also, Jessica can’t talk! This feat should be more celebrated as Jessica is pretty much never without words for anything, and she’s always trying to take charge of a situation. I think it must be hard for her to keep quiet.

Jamis and Paul begin to fight and we know that Paul has been trained his entire life by fighters who are so badass they have songs about them, so we are pretty confident little Paulie is going to wipe the sand with Mr. Diaper-butt. But, Mr. Diaper-butt IS a hardened Fremen warrior, and he is PISSED so maybe we should worry a little?

Nahhhh. Turns out Paul kills him easily. The hard part was killing at all because Paul had never done it before. He feels bad about it.

The Fremen are so impressed by Paul’s ability they decide to give him a Fremen name. Usul, the base of the pillar. But you never hear that name in the movies because it is hella ugly. They ask him what he wants to be known by those not of Stilgar’s sietch and Paul tells them “Muad’dib”, the name for the mouse in the desert. This is the name they use in all the movies because it is hella awesome.

There’s some other crap in this chapter about sharing still suit parts (ew?) and Jessica making Paul feel like total crap about killing a guy even if it was to save his own life, but it’s not important. FREMEN FIGHT! YES! It’s a little anticlimactic because Jamis is pretty much destined to fail and Paul spends about half the fight thinking to himself too much instead of us the reader getting some blow by blow action commentary, but whatever. Frank isn’t into the violence. He’s into the ritual. So here we go. Straight into the ritual.

All I know is I need to get some apostrophes in my name. STAT. Rach’el. Yea. That’s what I’m going by from now on. And let’s give that E a long sound because it’s not Moo-ah-dib. It’s Moo-ah-deeb and I want some deeb in my name too. And another apostrophe will be fun: Ra’ch’eeel.

Does that sound too Klingon?

Moving on… towards inevitable war and stagnation…

Chapter 34: There’s no water on this planet…yet (God, I keep telling you guys!)

God created Arrakis to train the faithful. – from “The Wisdom of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

What Happened:

We’re still with Paul and Jessica but it’s the evening after Paul and Jamis’ fight. Just before the first moon rises the Fremen begin Jamis’ funeral rites. Chani shows Paul the way the Fremen reclaim a person’s water and though Paul hesitates on taking possession of Jamis’ water (spoils of battle – THIS IS IMPORTANT IN A WEIRD WAY LATER) he and his mother both know that to refuse would not only insult the Fremen but possibly end their peaceful stay with them.

The Funeral is simple. As the moon’s rise and carry Jamis’ spirit with them, the Fremen gather round Jamis’ possessions, each intoning why they were friends with Jamis. Paul struggles to celebrate a man he hardly knew, except in death, and ends up thanking Jamis for teaching him what being a killer really means. He takes Jamis’ baliset (oh Gurney.. where are you Gurney man?!) and sings Chani a song. He’s already offered her his water-rings to hold, which is a courtship ritual even though Paul doesn’t know that. Jessica gets twitchy and starts planning to warn Paul off of the Fremen women, they aren’t suitable for a Duke! (Damn Jessica.. way to perpetuate your own torment onto others… we’re supposed to think Jessica is very strong and future-minded but whatever, I’m a modern lady and I don’t stand for know concubine keeping!)

They take Jamis water and put it in a vast hidden lake of water beneath the rock. Stilgar tells Jessica that the Fremen have thousands of these lakes where they stockpile water for the future in an effort to basically terraform Arrakis- they dream of a paradise world of plants. This is Liet’s future and all this talks sets off one of Paul melancholy thoughts about his place on this world and the potential for extreme violence in his name by the Fremen. He doesn’t like it.

This chapter begins with some beautiful passages about Arrakis itself. Once again, Herbert shows strength in ecological writing. Jessica observes even the slightest change in the air’s moisture. She is totally preoccupied with it and in a way this entire chapter is about water. The lack of it, the owning of it, it’s use as currency, it’s use as a great changing force. Water is both hope and despair on Arrakis and every chapter set on the planet takes great pains to remind us readers that this is an immense, dry, desolute, harsh place. The Fremen’s ability to survive here, let alone begin the steps to harvest the moisture of the air and the water of the polar caps to actually change their planet according to one man’s vision is a damn miracle!

Herbert also gives descriptions of what wearing a still suit all the time is like, how this harsh society must be harsh to survive, but when it is beautiful it is profoundly so. Like a sunset in the desert, the funeral rites of the Fremen are simple and powerful. This chapter is always a joy to read.

Chapter 35: Hey it’s a party!

The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.- from “Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib” by the Princess Irulan

What Happened:

In this chapter we finally remember that there are other people in this novel! HOORAY! We’re off to Geidi Prime to watch gladiator fights with the Harkonnens. Great. Can’t wait.

The Baron is entertaining the Emperor’s friend, genetic eunuch Count Hasimir Fenring and his Bene Gesserit wife, during the holiday- that is, Feyd’s birthday. What does Feyd like to do on his birthdays? Oh he likes to kill helpless, drugged slaves. Of COURSE he does.

Feyd is off attempting to be clever so we’re left with the Baron and Fenring for most of the chapter. The Count and his wife have a funny way of ahhhhmmm….hmmm talking..they.. hmmm ahhhh love to ahhh stretch and hmmmmm hum their ahhh way through everything they ahhhhhmmmm say. It’s super annoying. I have NO IDEA why they do it, other than to just be weird, make people uncomfortable and to basically just fuck with everyone. I wouldn’t put is past these two ya know, they have far too much fun for a Eunuch and a Witch.

The Count has been sent by the Emperor to check up on the Baron. The Baron is trying to hide his plans to position his family to perhaps attain Imperial power and the most disturbing thought to the Count is that the Baron plans on using Arrakis as a prison planet, much like Salusa Secundus where (Spoiler.. ) the Imperium trains its Sardaukar.  Blah blah blah this is important because there are far more Fremen than anyone suspects and if Arrakis is a terrible planet like Salusa Secundus that totally explains why the Fremen WIPED THE SANDY FLOOR with the Emperor’s precious super killers. PWNED!

But that’s not interesting that just two creepy freaks talking. What is Feyd up to?

Feyd has used the talents of captured mentat Thufir Hawat (best name ever!) to hatch a plan that will increase Feyd’s popularity. Usually Feyd just kills drugged slaves, but this time the slave isn’t drugged. He’s just got a triping word that will render him an easy target. If Feyd is attacked by and then defeats an undrugged slave than the crowd will love Feyd even more for his bravery in the face of treachery and his Uncle Baron will become even more paranoid than he already is, having failed to predict or prevent such treachery (b/c it could only be a plot of Feyd’s life!). Get all that? Wheels within wheels. The Harkonnens make everything so complicated.

Anyways this is what happens. The slave ends up being a captured Atreides fighter who almost manages to kill Feyd, but Feyd cheats and uses the code word and poisons the slave. The Atreides man manages to kill himself rather than die by sneaky cowardly poison, and dies saying “One day one of us will get you!”

Meanwhile the Count and his Witchy Wife have hatched a plan to seduce Feyd. The Bene Gesserit want Feyd’s child to preserve the bloodline. They’re still on that crap? Way behind the times ladies… behind.the.times. Anyways the chapter ends with one of the best pieces of advice ever uttered in a genre novel, “Do not count a human dead until you have seen his body. And even then you can make a mistake.”-Lady Fenring

This is a great chapter because it directly contrasts the conflict between Paul and Jamis. Where Paul and Jamis fight without armor, on equal footing and for a very important, even religious reason- Feyd fights for entertainment and personal glory. His enemy is drugged, injured and altered in order to put the fight Feyd’s way. Feyd wears armor, a static shield the Fremen abhor, and poisons his enemy. The spectators at the gladiator ring lust for blood and treat the event as pure entertainment, a thrilling rush. The Fremen who witness Paul and Jamis fight do not relish it. When it is over a touching and sober funeral is held. Feyd only refrains from desecrating the slave’s body as a bravura act to gain the crowd’s cheers.

Do you totally hate the Harkonnens now? Do you laugh at them for being easily manipulated by the Fenrings? (PS – these are the people who lived in the manor the Atreides moved into on Arrakis. This is the same lady who left Jessica those messages…. Interesting.) I’ll admit it, I totally dig Feyd. He has the potential to be a cool guy, if he wasn’t such a prick. Lady Fenring even says that had he been raised by the Atreides, perhaps Feyd would rival Paul in many ways. As it stands now the only thing Feyd has going for him is my mental image of Sting in a winged diaper… what?

I always laugh out loud at the passage where the Baron is described as conversing with the Count’s shoulder because the hmmmming and ahhhhhing makes it totally impossible to look him in the face. Try it at work tomorrow. Just don’t get fired and then blame me. Some people like crazy.

But hey, the Baron called for a party so let’s go do that. Then when you are done partying, you can come back and we’ll continue on with the next five chapters.

That’s chapters 36-40, stop when you get to “Control the coinage and the courts…” We’ll be passing into Book III: The Prophet, which means we are at the beginning of the end!