Jessica and the Duke: Pages 44- 97

One thing I am enjoying about this book is how naturally important details seem to come up. The narrative truly unfolds within the story, not before it or outside of it. No moments of “Oh my GOD it’s Angela’s identical twin sister! We haven’t seen you since you left for Egypt on an archeological expedition to find King Tut’s remains 10 years ago!” No no… Herbert can do much better than that. At first I thought: the questions that spring up in my mind on page X are addressed by ~ page X+30. But I realized that the answers are coming in pieces, and Herbert doesn’t let any crucial question hang for too long in the air before coming back to it and delivering a detail that gives us insight. The details comes naturally, organically, as if it is- no, it IS a part of the story!

One such detail that Herbert has been gradually explaining is the relationship between Jessica and Duke Leto. At first, I assumed that because Jessica was Paul’s mother and lived with Duke Leto, she was the Duke’s wife. Then she was referred to as the Duke’s concubine, which I was totally perplexed by. Later Duke Leto told Jessica to be thankful that he never married her. After that, Dr. Yueh asked Jessica why she hadn’t made the Duke marry her, and, from her response, we understand the reason: while he remains unmarried, other houses still have hope for alliance.

Since she has born the Duke a son, and the Duke has kept her by his side, she’s more than a sex toy. My understanding of a “concubine” is a long term sex toy, but Jessica seems to be even more than that. I think both Dr. Yueh and Jessica have thought about the fact that she can make the Duke to anything. Now knowing that the Duke devoted to Jessica, and has refrained to marrying her simply for political reasons, I am wondering about what “concubine” means to these people…

Also, with this prediction of the Duke’s death floating around, what happens to Jessica when/if he dies? Does a wife receive more “legal” privileges than a concubine/mother of the heir? And: while the Duke remains alive and single, the other houses have hope. If he dies, how does that affect the standing of his house?

Another side the relationship between Jessica and the Duke pivots on the Duke’s father. What’s the deal here? Why does Jessica hate the Duke’s father? How did he die? Is there something important about the timing of his death, the fact that he died after the Duke was born?

On 0-41 of Dune; 4

On page 8, the Reverend Mother says, "... the gom jabbar. It kills only animals." - RR
I think, Rubi, that the Reverend Mother was trying to be exact but not literal. The gom jabber as I understood it is merely a very quick and deadly poison which the Reverand Mother holds up to Paul's throat; she is the actual judge (killer) who both defines and identifies humanity . (Which is why she is called specially to Caladan to administer the test.)

in the Herbert universe, i don't think the gom jabbar is about overcoming pain or emotion. like the reverend mother says, pain is just the axis of the test, it's about crisis and the discipline to see the bigger picture. the animal will bear terrible pain to save it's own life ... the human will bear terrible pain to play a role in a larger strategy. - AA
What is the difference, in your mind, between "overcoming emotion" and "discipline"? To me they are almost interchangeable.

i think that makes the baron strikingly human, as i'm pretty sure he'd endure whatever it took to take house Atreides down. - AA
Well put. This makes the book more interesting, as before I was under the impression that human was equated with good, and therefore there would be nothing more to learn from the book. With this view, the book may be exploring humanity and trying to understand the factes of both emotion and reason.

On 0-41 of Dune; 2

Herbert has created this space-going society that we can't really place definitively in one of the distant future or the distant past. it could be either and it's a little bit of both, right. it's feudal, it's patriarchal, it's mystical, it's about family and rites of passage and vendetta and prophecy ... and the book has barely started.
It's interesting to me that you try to place this book in our world and our own reality. I find that more often than not I am so completely engaged in a story, sci fi in particular, that I forget about the world that I live in unless the book explicitely makes references to obvious real history or facts. For example, countries, like in Ender's Game, or people, like in The Alienist. If I had to pick a time for this book I would categorize it into what I think of as, for lack of a better term, future's future: thousands of years ahead of today, in the aftermath of society's prime. In my head, this category is largely dominated by book where the reality is at odds with our reality in that there is a society that is either unlike anything we've recorded -- "futurific" -- or similar to distant history -- "primitive" -- and this society is juxtaposed with a technology level that is the opposite, e.g. society is futurific and technology is primitive, or visa versa. Does that make sense? I realize this was not your argument but I was struck by the idea of trying to place it in our reality at all.

shoot ... sometimes i want to say the Litany Against Fear it's such a great mantra.
Word. It is the one thing that stayed with me to this day from reading the book long ago. In fact, I actually forgot where I heard it. (Also forgot it verbatim but the idea of it haunts me from time to time so I'm glad I finally found it again.)

as for whatever it is the bene gesserit are doing ... i think all we can say at this point is
Ah, you write with knowledge of more of the book than I have. (i.e., What the fuck is "germ plasm"?)(Don't answer that.)

any thoughts on the spice?
Quick thought: I maintain that the Baron's Mentat is not "human" (as defined by the BG). Mentat are by definition logical and goverened by reason. How then, is he addicted to a spice? He must be fallible...

Dune, p41; Chess, 1

It is hard for me to put the book down. I remember so little of the book but here and there I get glimpses of suspenseful memories and so I want to plow through. I haven't.
I love this chess game that's being played. How many moves ahead does each party already see? I am also intrigued by the juxtaposition of the two heirs, both smart and wise beyond their years, yet still so obviously children with their know-it-all attitudes.
What do you think of the gom-jabber? Is overcoming pain -- emotion? -- really all that seperates humanity from the animal kingdom? So far that makes only Jessica and Paul human for sure, and a few characters decidedly animal: The Baron is obese, his Mentat is addicted to spice, Dr. Yueh will commit crimes for love. I wonder where Feyd-Rautha will fall, and how.
Why do the Bene-Gesserit customarily only test females?

Success! A Book.

DUNE

The Book: ACE Books paperback, ISBN 0-441-17271-7

The Cheat: Spark

Top 10 Others + 1 of My Own

Rankings:

1 - dune, god of small things
3 - wildseed, one hundred years …, stranger in a strange land, lady chatterley's lover, lullaby or choke
8 - freakonomics, atlas shrugged, the second sex
11 - native speaker, the world is flat, the worthing saga, slaughterhouse five, the sun also rises, the good earth, genome, shantaram, catch 22, mao II, guns germs and steel, a confederacy of dunces

----------------------------------

Alex
freakonomics
wildseed
Lullaby or Choke
lady chatterley's lover
The World is Flat
dune
altas shrugged
God of Small Things
One Hundred Years of Solitude
stranger in a strange land

Anna
Dune
Stranger in a Strange Land
Native Speaker
Wild Seed
The Worthing Saga
Slaughterhouse-Five
Atlas Shrugged
Sun Also Rises
Lady Chatterley's Lover
God of Small Things
Lullaby or Choke

Rubi
The Good Earth
Lady Chatterley's Lover
Watership Down
Shantaram
Catch 22
The Second Sex
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Genome
Freakonomics
Dune
God of Small Things

Vanessa
God of Small Things
Dune
Lullaby or Choke
Mao II
stranger in a strange land
wildseed
guns germs and steel
the second sex
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Native Speaker
A Confederacy of Dunces

Let's Try This Again

Alex's List
(books she hasn't read)
1 stranger in a strange land (Robert Heinlen)
2 the grapes of wrath (John Steinbeck)
3 we the living (Ayn Rand)
4 a house for mr. biswas (V. S. Naipaul)
5 battlefield earth (L. Ron Hubbard)
6 the way of all flesh (Samuel Butler)
7 moonheart (Charles de Lint)
8 dream on monkey mountain (Derek Walcott)
9 lady chatterley's lover (D. H. Lawrence)
10 the sound and the fury (William Faulkner)

(books she has)
wildseed (Octavia Butler)
dune (Frank Herbert)
shantaram (Gregory Roberts)
the worthing saga (Orson Scott Card)
the second sex (Simone de Beauvoir)
genome (Matt Ridley)
freakonomics (Levitt and Dubner)
guns germs and steel (Jared Diamond)
east of eden (john steinbeck)

Anna's List
1 Dune (Frank Herbert)
2 Blood Meridian (Cormac McCarthy)
3 Lullaby or Choke (Chuck Palahniuk)
4 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Mark Haddon)
5 Mao II (Don DeLillo)
6 Couples (John Updike)
7 Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas (Daniel J. Flynn)
8 the Rabbit series (John Updike)
9 White Teeth (Zadie Smith)
10 Animal Farm (George Orwell)

Rubi's List
1 God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)
2 Reservation Blues (Sherman Alexie)
3 Tracks, (Louise Erdrich), and any other of her books
4 The Places in Between (Rory Stewart)
5 Madam Bovary (Gustave Flaubert)
6 The World is Flat (Thomas L. Friedman)
7 One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
8 Lolita, by Nabokov9 Native Speaker (Chang Rae-Lee)
10 In the Shadow of Man (Jane Goodall)

Vanessa's List
1 The Satanic Verses (Rushdie, Salman )
2 Ragtime (Doctorow, E. L)
3 One Hundred Years of Solitude (Márquez, Gabriel García)
4 Catch-22 (Heller, Joseph)
5 A Confederacy of Dunces (Toole, Kennedy)
6 The Crying of Lot 49 (Pynchon, Thomas)
7 Still Life with Woodpecker (Robbins, Tom)
8 Sun Also Rises (Hemingway, Ernest)
9 Sophie's World (Gaarder, Jostein)
10 Watership Down (Adams, Richard)
11 Atlas Shrugged (Rand, Ayn)
12 The Life of Pi (Martel, Yan)
13 War and Peace (Tolstoy, Leo)
14 Stranger In A Strange Land (Heinlein, Robert)
15 The Count of Monte Cristo (Dumas, Alexandre)
16 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Joyce, James)
17 The Good Earth (Buck, Pearl S.)
18 Slaughterhouse-Five (Vonnegut, Kurt)
19 The Idiot (Dostoevsky, Fyodor)

First Book: Kafka's The Trial

Blogger is back! From our emails it seems we've settled on Kafka's The Trial. The following version can be found at B&N or at Borders/Amazon.com:

The Trial: A New Translation Based on the Restored Text
Franz Kafka, Breon Mitchell, Arthur H. Samuelson (Editor)
Publisher: Schocken (May 25, 1999)

Let's get our hands on it and read the first 53 pages (to round off the chapter, says Anna) by next Monday, June 19th. OK? Please comment some affirmations (objections? modifications?) so I'm not the only person doing this?

Official Format for responses to books:
Book Abbreviation, page number: subject, # response
eg: Trial, p50: I Like This Book, 1

It Is Time.

Underworld by Don DeLillo? This same edition can be found at Amazon (beware, Amazon may be cheaper but it takes 2 weeks to ship!) or B&N. FYI, the thing is ~900 pages long!
Should we maybe start with a shorter book?
Also from the NYTimes list is McCarthy's Blood Meriden (330pp; amazon; b&n) , Roth's American Pastoral (430pp; b&n), Morrison's Beloved (which I've already read), and Updike's Rabbit series (I say we hold off on a a 4-book series).
Of course, we don't have to start with the books with multiple votes. Other books I'd like to read include (in no particular order) Roth's The Human Stain, Morrison's Love, Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, Kafka's The Trial. (Click on the titles to be taken to B&N websites.)
What have you guys been eyeing?