joe-non-goodreads

[joe-non-goodreads]

Dune revisited P1 (p.1-111)

Maybe should pace myself a bit more, but whatever it’s a big book.

heave ho, spoliers below

As expected, this has been a really different experience the second time around. A lot of the david lynch casting depictions are on my mind, but thankfully haven’t overwritten my memories of how I think of those characters.

Even as I’ve literally already written on how generous the book is with laying out the plot beats ahead of time, I’d really forgotten how much it gives this early on. A lot of these beats are divulged either without, or directly alongside the context that would make sense of them. The first time around I was mentally preoccupied enough building a mental map of the world, but with that context ready in-memory, it’s ridiculous how much I’ve been handed. The seats of power, the relevant political machinations…not just the kwisatz haderach as some kind of macguffin point, but the exact goal/power/mechanism by which k.h. is going to operate (which I only remembered being revealed much later in the book)

By this point (p. 112), they’ve arrived on Arrakis, Paul‘s taken down a softball assassination attempt, Jessica’s begun ingratiating herself to the fremen using a canned Bene Gesserit prophecy, deliberately planted by B.G. missionary operatives within the fremen folklore long ago specifically for their agents to manipulate in a pinch.

the fact that this “prophecy” (of so much consequence in the story!) had 100% originated as a piece political manipulation is something that I see ignored really often in adaptation and cultural memory etc. Even as it treats the impacts of the belief in this destiny with extreme gravity, there’s an deep cynicism underpinning the making of legend.

I’m very sure the culmination of this story is meant to be taken at least somewhat as tragedy.

Also as an aside, I really like how many elements I might expect in sci-fi are just completely off the table in this. Weapons? -there’s lasers, but they’re rendered impractical a majority of the time. Computers? -absolutely not, completely taboo in this world. Space travel? -yes, but it’s operation in absence of computers is made extremely mysterious. Here at Dune the things We care about are politics, psychology, and terraforming. (Also some stuff with genetic memory that gets uncomfortably close to eugenics and gender essentialism, that kind just has to be dealt with)

[joe-non-goodreads]

Dune revisited: Preramble

First time I read Dune was basically on a whim, as a way to catch up on some reference points; I was completely blown away, and I still hold the book (and the series) (thru God Emperor anyway) in extremely high regard. Each book has a distinct draw from the others, and what really hooked me in about the first one largely comes down to really cool structural decisions, and being able to trust that I’m in good hands with the way that structure is deployed. It’s exciting to approach a first reread, knowing the score ahead of time.

Spoilers ahoy

Because from memory, the first book in particular has a really weird and cool way of dispensing information. From literal page 1 we're clued in that the events of this story have been passed on into legend. Plot events are freely handed out really far in advance by the chapter headers, while extremely basic and fundamental pieces of the world’s mechanics are tightly guarded, treated as huge climactic reveals. The Duke dies early on, having achieved nothing, because the doctor sold him out. And this is not even really a spoiler, the book flat-out divulges this up-front. By the time the doctor even shows up on the page, the reader already knows what's up with him. Context for the plot element underpinning literally all of the world’s quirks, though? too bad, you’re gonna have to wait for that one.

But even when that betrayal plays out there's suspense and opportunity for surprise, elements which themselves dovetail in lockstep with the book’s (and later series’) treatment and depiction of precognition —  perception and cause-and-effect expanded to a grand scale, glaring peaks of Likelihood with shadowed valleys in between.

I sometimes see people complaining about the walls of consequence-of-ecology-on-psychology text that shows up this, but tbh that’s exactly the kind of shit I like about this book.

[joe-non-goodreads]

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“I stopped at the Money Wheel and dropped a dollar on Thomas Jefferson--a $2 bill, the straight Freak ticket, thinking as always that some idle instinct bet might carry the whole thing off. But no. Just another two bucks down the tube. you bastards! No. Calm down. Learn to enjoy losing.”

I think it’s safe to say this book is what got me reading again after college.

I saw the movie first and didn’t really care for it at the time. But for some reason it stuck with me and I kept coming back to it. I kept (correctly, it turned out) feeling like something was going over my head. After I made up my mind to go to the book, a friend recommended that I first read Tom Wolf’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test before diving in. This ended up being a great idea, as Acid Test gave extremely helpful context to the cultural moment Fear and Loathing is very much about processing, and Wolf’s style makes for an excellent lead-in to Hunter Thompson’s fascinations as an author and a journalist.

It wasn’t intentional, but also probably not a coincidence that I read this during November 2016, fresh off Trump’s election, and it seems likely that this timing permanently altered part of my brain.

“A very painful experience in every way, a proper end to the sixties: Tim Leary a prisoner of Eldridge Cleaver in Algeria, Bob Dylan clipping coupons in Greenwich Village, both Kennedys murdered by mutants, Owsley folding napkins on Terminal Island, and finally Cassius/Ali belted incredibly off his pedestal by a human hamburger, a man on the verge of death. Joe Frazier, like Nixon, had finally prevailed for reasons that people like me refused to understand--at least not out loud. ...But that was some other era, burned out and long gone from the brutish realities of this foul year of Our Lord, 1971.”

As the 60s youth felt their momentum and progress unstoppable, the conservatism of the time mobilized and delivered a string of blows culminating in Nixon’s election that brought the movement to a screeching halt, with a lot of its members struggling to deal with its failure and its aftermath. It turned out a major reason the Gilliam movie hadn’t been clicking with me was that it would go all-out on the drug-induced hijinks, and then interrupt with slower scenes of wistful reminiscence and symbolism on the 60s. The book melds these elements together much more smoothly--the story is actually about the cultural moment, and the drug use is in service of this, not the other way. The country doesn’t work the way you thought, the movement you thought invincible failed spectacularly, its ringleaders discredited; you’re abandoning the pretense of a higher purpose to your actions, now you just want to get fucked up.

And it turns out this is the correct attitude for Vegas, and a totally valid (encouraged?) path to the american dream. No amount of abuse or harm caused by the protagonists is more evil than the city itself, the Conservative’s vision of unwinding for a fun time. Vegas is a city that will happily chew up and grind out the weak, slow, and burnt out, but will tolerate destruction and reward audacity. Either way, the exhaustion and paranoia aren’t leaving any time soon.