After the movie, I’ve been slowly re-reading the Dune books here and there. After concluding them I’m supper bummed Frank Herbert was unable to write the final novel, but feel like I have some idea where he was headed, and can walk away from the series satisfied.
I’m not too sure what the story line was going to be. Obviously the two godlike Face Dancers, and the
Faction hunting the Honored Matres would provide the conflict. There would no doubt be a few hundred pages of political maneuvering and philosophical meandering, concluding rapidly in the action packed last chapters. Why change the formula at this point?
However, it’s not so much the story, but seeing how the overall themes resolved, and where the Golden Path was meant to lead mankind that left me pondering the series. The leason Paul and Leto 2 left, was that prescience wasn’t the solution. Despite their good intentions, and view into a near infinite possible future, they were still forced to rule through fear and violence. However, at the end of Chapter House, due to selective breeding, genetic manipulation, and the scattering providing greater variability, there are a number or evolved lifeforms as powerful, or more so than Paul, and likely even Leto 2. Many of them share the ability to tap into past memories. The original memory sharers, the Bene Gesserits are even able to pacify and absorb the feral Honored Matres by sharing this ability with them. In Chapter House, the Reverend Mother reflects that many of their past lives are from those strong enough to pass on their genetic line. The victors and victimizers, and it is in reflecting on the past atrocities of their ancestors that partly motivates the Bene Gesserits to better humanity. Other memory sharers are the Bene Tleixlax and Duncan Idaho clones that remember past clone memory, Face Dancers that can absorb memories, and the Atredies decendants, who powers don’t seem to even be fully realized yet.
I think the Golden Path was meant to eventually lead to an evolved state of humanity, where an increasing amount of people are able to tap into a form of past or shared memory, and that it is by looking into the past, not the future, and by not being confined by one’s owned selfish ego, that humanity would eventually altered by the Golden Path.
I don’t know if Frank Herbert ever partook of psychedelics, but based on the time he lived, and the things he wrote, it doesn’t require a huge stretch of the imagination to think he did. At the very least he must have been aware of them as a concept, and the feeling of interconnection, and loss of self felt by those who are involved is such shenanigans, and it must have been a popular concept at the time. I’ve lived during our own divided times, and can’t say personally though.
Anyways, these ideas have probably been stated better by other in the past, but have given me some closure on one of my favorite books of all time. At least more than Brian Herbert’s fan fiction (of which I have admittedly have read very little of) likely ever would.
by vickrockafeller