Chapter 34


Moderators: Omphalos, Freakzilla, ᴶᵛᵀᴬ

Post Reply
User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Chapter 34

Post by Freakzilla »

God created Arrakis to train the faithful.
-from "The Wisdom of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan

Jessica is awakend by the begining of Jamis' funeral rite. Paul and Chani tell her that Paul has to witness the ceremony and give permission for the water to be weighed. The flesh belongs to the person but the water belongs to the tribe, except in the combat. The water of the loser belongs to the winner to replace what is lost fighting in the open without a stilsuit. But Paul doesn't want it, Jessica tells him he will accept it. Stilgar calls for the friends of Jamis, Paul goes, Chani and Jessica sit apart. Stilgar takes his robe, and for Jamis' woman and the guards Stilgar takes some rocks and a book, leader's right. Stilgar takes Jamis' marker for his coffee service to be given to Usul in a proper ceremony. He also takes Jamis' broken crysknife, for the Funeral Plain. Each person says something good about Jamis, then takes one of his belongings. Paul takes the baliset and says he was a friend of Jamis, Jamis taught him that when you kill, you pay for it. Tears come to Paul's eyes and the Fremen are astonished saying he gives moisture to the dead and touch his cheek. This impresses the value of water on Paul more than anything else. They say a prayer then Chani counts out the water rings for him. Chani tells him she will show him how to tie them into a kerchief to keep them from rattling and giving them away. Paul asks her if she will hold them for him. she smiles and looks at Stilgar who tells her he doesn't yet know their ways, he asks her to hold them for him without commitment until she shows him how. They take the water through a secret passage down to a catchbasin. Paul recognizes the place from his visions, on this path lies the Jihad and he can feel the race consciousness. He doesn't want it to happen but he senses that nothing short of the death of everyone here could stop it. Stilgar tells Jessica that they have thousands of such caches. They have calculated to within a million decaliters how much they need, when they have it they will change the face of Arrakis. Jessica senses Kynes' hand in this, a people with a fanatical goal are just what Paul needs, he can weild them like a sword to win his place back. Paul feels as though he's missed an essential decision here and he's now caught in his own myth, still the Jihad looms ahead. After they leave the catchbasin, Paul plays one of Gurney's songs for the troop. It's a love song for Chani and Jessica wonders why he plays it for her. Paul can't help but think of his mother as his enemy.
User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Re: Chapter 34

Post by Freakzilla »

Good, clean.
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
User avatar
Cpt. Aramsham
Posts: 204
Joined: 06 Oct 2012 11:11

Re: Chapter 34

Post by Cpt. Aramsham »

So the end of this chapter appears to correspond to the dream Paul tells Mohiam about at the beginning of the book:
"We're in a little place in some rocks where it's sheltered. It's almost night, but it's hot and I can see patches of sand out of an opening in the rocks. We're . . . waiting for something . . . for me to go meet some people. And she's frightened but trying to hide it from me, and I'm excited. And she says: 'Tell me about the waters of your homeworld, Usul.' "

"She asks me to tell her about the waters. And I take her hand. And I say I'll tell her a poem. And I tell her the poem, but I have to explain some of the words -- like beach and surf and seaweed and seagulls."
When it actually happens it's a little different:
He knew he had seen this place before, experienced it in a fragment of prescient dream on faraway Caladan, but details of the place were being filled in now that he had not seen.

The troop filed through the last door into the main cavern. The door was sealed. Lights were extinguished, hoods removed from the cavern openings, revealing the night and the stars that had come over the desert.

Chani's voice intruded from the deep cave darkness: "Tell me about the waters of your birthworld, Paul Muad'Dib."
And Paul: "Another time, Chani. I promise."
Such sadness.

"Then sing me one of your songs," Chani pleaded.

"This was a song of a friend of mine," Paul said. "I expect he's dead now, Gurney is. He called it his evensong."
It's hard to tell how many of the details changing are deliberate, and which might be mere sloppiness on FH's part. That Paul ends up singing Chani a song instead of telling her the poem is presumably deliberate (perhaps simply a way to avoid repetition). But why does she call him Paul Muad'Dib instead of Usul, his sietch name? The mood is also a little different: in the dream, Paul is "excited"; but when it happens he is preoccupied with thoughts of the jihad, and Jessica perceives his mood to be melancholy...
User avatar
Naïve mind
Posts: 388
Joined: 26 Aug 2012 05:58

Re: Chapter 34

Post by Naïve mind »

Definitely deliberate. This passage is close by:
Paul swallowed. He felt that he played a part already played over countless times in his mind . . . yet . . . there were differences. He could see himself perched on a dizzying summit, having experienced much and possessed of a profound store of knowledge, but all around him was abyss.

And again he remembered the vision of fanatic legions following the green and black banner of the Atreides, pillaging and burning across the universe in the name of their prophet Muad'Dib.

That must not happen, he told himself.

"Is that the name you wish, Muad'Dib?" Stilgar asked.

"I am an Atreides," Paul whispered, and then louder: "It's not right that I give up entirely the name my father gave me. Could I be known among you as Paul-Muad'Dib?"

"You are Paul-Muad'Dib," Stilgar said.

And Paul thought: That was in no vision of mine. I did a different thing.
But he felt that the abyss remained all around him.
At this point, Paul despairs of being locked into the path he can see by his prescience. So he pushes out at every opportunity, trying to see how much of the future he can change.
User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Re: Chapter 34

Post by Freakzilla »

Also, these were Paul's natural, prescient dreams. The reality is always a little different.
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
Post Reply