Now that you've read Dune, let's talk. The fathers and/or father figures in this books are well...how can I say this nicely....strange. We have a book that deal with multiple family relationships in a patriarchal society. Some fathers sacrifice for their families and some father figures, well, raise some interesting children. Each man's decisions becomes a major plot mover and central thematic idea within the book. What is even more interesting is the idea of familial obligations within each family and how the children react to those obligations and to their fathers. and father figures. How would you rate these families (least dysfunctional to most dysfunctional)? Are they dysfunctional at all given the setting and atmosphere of the novel? Did their political society and families create them? Explain your answers and don't forget about the Fremen.
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I think it's time that we address literature in terms of the particular and the universal. I know, I know, you were all thinking the exact same thing. It's weird how in sync we are already, right?
You ever notice how people seem incapable of leaving Shakespeare's plays in the time and place of their original settings? I mean, must we transplant Richard III into an early 20th century labor dispute or make Macbeth soliloquize in a dusty town square in the Old West? Can't we just leave well enough alone? Well, no, we can't. We do things like this because there is a universality to Shakespeare's work that begs constant comparison and reconsideration. Hamlet's plight is his, but it is also ours...to some degree, at least. We love Joyce's Dublin and Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha because they are incredibly specific microcosms for much larger spaces and struggles. They are miraculous, incomparable blends of the particular and the universal. Thomas C. Foster discusses this sort of literary phenomenon in much more detail in Chapter 9 of How to Read Novels Like a Professor. Treating a work of fiction as an allegory can be a tricky balancing act: do it just right, and you enrich it, greatly lengthening its reach and depth; do it wrong (meaning overdo it), and you actually simplify it, bleaching its unique hues and effacing its nuances. Naturally, Dune is ripe for allegorical interpretation. How do you think Herbert did on this score? Does his tale possess enough merit on its own as a work of fiction, or do you think he leans too heavily on the allegorical? What societal and personal issues do you feel he most effectively tackles, and what other works do you feel operate similarly? Can't wait to read what you have to say. Now I'm off to pen a Dune re-imagining that takes place in Prohibition-era Chicago. Screenwriting credits for anyone who contributes to my bold new vision! |
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August 2015
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