God Emperor of Dune – Entry #6

Collage depicting the ancient city of Jerusalem
nestled in the desert hills.
Artwork by Dawn Marnell.

There were so many interesting conversations during Leto’s “test” of Siona out in the desert.  Siona asked many probing questions.  When Siona asked if Leto had a personal religion, Leto thought to himself how “[i]t had always astonished him how a desert provoked thoughts of religion” (God Emperor of Dune, p. 311).  I have felt that way, especially during my visits to Israel.  Somehow the desert makes it more natural to have a personal relationship with God.

That's me, with our tour guide Zvi, overlooking the Wilderness of Zin ... the desert that the Hebrews wandered in led by Moses for forty years until finally allowed into the land of milk and honey. (1987)

Then Siona pressed Leto about what he believes and his reply is: “I believe that something cannot emerge from nothing without divine intervention” (God Emperor of Dune, p. 311).  Siona does not understand so Leto expands on the notion saying: “Nature makes no leaps” (God Emperor of Dune, p. 311).  A beautiful and simple statement yet it leaves one with much to think about.

Meanwhile, back at the Citadel, a disturbed and frustrated Duncan picks a fight with Moneo.  Duncan lunges at Moneo with a knife and Moneo easily sidestepped Duncan and spilled him onto the floor.  Duncan, Swordmaster of Ginaz, easily dispensed with by a comparatively old man!  Moneo could see the shock.  And then Moneo stabbed him with these words:

“He has been breeding us for a long time, Duncan, strengthening many things in us.  He has bred us for speed, for intelligence, for self-restraint, for sensitivity.  You’re … you’re just an older model.”

(God Emperor of Dune, p. 311)

God Emperor of Dune – Entry #5

Every once in a while I find discrepancies and there is one on page 189.  The most recent Duncan Idaho ghola and Siona are talking and Siona asks how Leto was in Duncan’s original life.  Duncan responded with “Which one?” (God Emperor of Dune, p. 189).  Siona replied “Yes, I fogot there were two – the grandfather and our Leto.  I mean our Leto, of course” (God Emperor of Dune, p. 189).  Duncan’s answer was “He was just a child, that’s all I know” (God Emperor of Dune, p. 189).  Now perhaps this is ambiguous enough but the original Duncan Idaho died on the night that young Paul Atreides was first given sanctuary among the Fremen.  The first Duncan Idaho ghola knew the boy child Leto, Paul Atreides’ son, but the gholas do not have the memories of the other gholas.

Over the next fifty pages, I came across so many things to quote that I am not going to comment on them.  I will just store them here to ponder.

Religion suppresses curiosity.  What I do subtracts from the worshipper.  Thus it is that eventually I will do nothing, giving it all back to frightened people who will find themselves on that day alone and forced to act for themselves.

-- The Stolen Journals

(God Emperor of Dune, p. 198)

     Leto had said something about exploding violence.  Even as he watched the women at their silent prayer, Idaho recalled what Leto had said: “Men are susceptible to class fixations.  They create layered societies.  The layered society is an ultimate invitation to violence.  It does not fall apart.  It explodes.”

     “Women never do this?”

     “Not unless they are almost completely male dominated or locked into a male role model.”

     “The sexes can’t be that different!”

     “But they are.  Women make common cause based on their sex, a cause which transcends, class and caste.  That is why I let my women hold the reins.”

 (God Emperor of Dune, p. 206)

     “I have been forming this human society, shaping it for more than three thousand years, opening a door out of adolescence for the entire species, “ Leto had said.

     “Nothing you say explains a female army!”  Idaho had protested.

     “Rape is foreign to women, Duncan.  You ask for a sex-rooted behavioral difference?  There’s one.”

     “Stop changing the subject!”

     “I do not change it.  Rape was always the pay-off in male military conquest.  Males did not have to abandon any of their adolescent fantasies while engaging in rape.”

     Idaho recalled the glowering anger which had come over him at this thrust.

     “My houris tame the males,” Leto said.  “It is domestication, a thing that females know from eons of necessity.”

     Idaho stared wordlessly at Leto’s cowled face.

     “To tame,” Leto said.  “To fit into some orderly survival pattern.  Women learned it at the hands of men; now men learn at the hands of women.”

 (God Emperor of Dune, p. 209)

     Hwi shook the tears from her face.  The Inquisitors of Ix would react with rage against Tleilax.  Would Ix believe her report?  Everyone in her Embassy taken over by Face Dancers!  It was difficult to believe.

     “Everyone?” she asked.

     “The Face Dancers had no reason to leave any of your original people alive.  You would have been next.”

     She shuddered.

     “They delayed, “ he [Leto] said, “because they knew they would have to copy you with a precision to defy my sense.  They are not sure about my abilities.”

 (God Emperor of Dune, pp. 216-217)

     “Think on the price I pay,” he [Leto] said.  “every descendant part of me will carry some of my awareness locked away within it, lost and helpless.”

     She [Hwi] put both hands over her mouth and stared at him.

     “This is the horror which my father could not face and which he tried to prevent: the infinite division and subdivision of a blind identity.”

 (God Emperor of Dune, p. 219)

     Leto smiled.  “Duncan, have I not told you that when you think you know something, that is a most perfect barrier against learning?”

 (God Emperor of Dune, p. 223)

     “This wise man observed that wealth is a tool of freedom.  But the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery.” [Leto in conversation with Hwi]

 (God Emperor of Dune, p. 238)

To wrap up this entry, one more passage from a conversation between Leto and Hwi.  These conversations are so intense as Leto shares his vision and wisdom in depth because of Hwi’s perception and intelligence.

     “But your Fish Speakers are …”

     “They teach about survival,” he said.

     Her eyes went wide with understanding.  “The survivors.  Of course!”

     “How precious you are,” he said.  “How rare and precious.  Bless the Ixians!”

     “And curse them?

     “That, too.”

     “I did not think I could ever understand about your Fish Speakers,” she said.

     “Not even Moneo sees it,” he said.  “And I despair of the Duncans.”

     “You have to appreciate life before you want to preserve it,” she said.

     “And it’s the survivors who maintain the most light and poignant hold upon the beauties of living.  Women know this more often than men because birth is the reflection of death.”

 (God Emperor of Dune, p. 239)

God Emperor of Dune – Entry #4

It was in reading the following chapter starter that I finally thought I understood the Golden Path.  And somehow, I had not understood on my first reading of this book.

When I set out to lead humankind along my Golden Path, I promised them a lesson their bones would remember.  I know a profound pattern which humans deny with their words even while their actions affirm it.  They say they seek security and quiet, the condition they call piece.  Even as they speak, they create the seeds of turmoil and violence.  If they find their quiet security, they squirm in it.  How boring they find it.  Look at them now.  Look at what they do while I record these words.  Hah!  I give them enduring eons of enforced tranquility which plods on and on despite their every effort to escape into chaos.  Believe me, the memory of Leto’s Peace shall abide with them forever.  They will seek their quiet security thereafter only with extreme caution and steadfast preparation.

-- The Stolen Journals

(God Emperor of Dune, p. 185)

Maybe I just needed to be more mature to understand the message.  It does not oppose a Buddhist way of thinking, to live in the moment.  Peace and tranquility seen through Buddhist eyes is living in the moment, recognizing each moment is precious.

God Emperor of Dune – Entry #3

Now here is a quote I had written down during my first reading of God Emperor of Dune.  Leto said it during the conversation with the two Bene Gesserit referred to in the previous entry.

“I point out to you, Marcus Clair Luyseyal, a lesson from past over-machined societies which you appear not to have learned.  The devices themselves condition the users to employ each other the way they employ machines.”

(God Emperor of Dune, p. 177)

This has become more and more obvious in our society as technology pervades our existence.  Not that I am opposed to technology.  I relish in technology.  I teach technology.  But we must always recognize and maintain our command of technology and our humanity, not tolerating the converse.

Shortly after this passage, Leto falls into a melancholy mood because of his surprising feelings of love for Hwi.  He seeks to alleviate the tumultuous feelings by having a “safari” back into his memory lives within.

      He imagined then describing such a safari to some awestruck visitor, a totally imaginary visitor because none would dare question him about such a holy matter.

     “I course backward down the flight of ancestors, hunting along the tributaries, darting into nooks and crannies.  Who has ever heard of Norma Cenva?  I have lived her!”

     “Lived her?” his imaginary visitor asked.

      “Of course. Why else would one keep one’s ancestors around?  You think a man designed the first Guild ship?  Your history books told you it was Aurelius Venport?  They lied.  It was his mistress, Norma.  She gave him the design, along with five children.  He thought his ego would take no less.  In the end, the knowledge that he had not really fulfilled his own image, that was what destroyed him.”

(God Emperor of Dune, p. 183)

Bless Frank Herbert for being able to envision a story outline spanning fifteen thousand years of future human history and to his son for taking up the parts of the outline his father ran out of time to expand.