Hussain loves the Dune series, by Frank Herbert. A lot. The more I read it, the more I realize that it's a formative influence on his whole entire shit. I was prepared to share in his enthusiasm after reading the first book, but then I had the misfortune of reading the next two (Dune Messiah and Children of Dune). Hussain seems to agree that these books try the patience, which is strange since he loves them, but he's an English Major, so maybe he enjoys books that feel like pulling teeth. Maybe thats a challenge or something. If that's the case, then he should read more Gene Wolfe, cause that dude is about as insane as Frank Herbert, but somehow a lot less intolerable.
In any case, I thought I would blog a Herbert simulation, which is basically exactly what the entire second half of Children of Dune sounds like:
Leto pressed his consciousness against the wall of voices that rose and fell like the fluttering froth of a roiled sea, and felt them give way to a new perception, a pleux d'gleubloix of half-truths, truths, and something beyond truth, which flitted at the edge of vision, like moths around a sietch glowglobe. For a moment, Leto drifted above this awareness, lost in the time-place, when he found himself plunging into a vision of a girl, making spice coffee, sitting on a spice mat, surrounded by spice cushions and old spice receipts from past spicy spice purchases. The melange seemed to be everywhere, part of everything, past-present, present-past, now-past, now-now, and now-past-present now. Beyond her the emerald waving of pampas grass was dappled with a silver dusting of sunlight, as she gazed out over the open bled, which I always italicize for reasons that only the spice trance can possibly fucking explain. She sang to herself, another one of those tuneless, totally impossible to imagine songs that are sprinkled throughout this series.
I come to you my love
Dying as we did live
Beside the pampas grass
And you did grind the beans
Like so many lives reclaimed
Beside the pampas grass
And this adds nothing to the story
Nor explains any of the trippy bullshit I've been inflicting on you for going on five hundred pages
Beside the pampas grass
Once again the inner memories washed over Leto's consciousness and spun him around, bubbles seething across his eyes, and leaving him deposited back on the open bled. His mouth felt dry, and the flinty smell of sand, mixed with the cinnamon scent of melange greeted him. His eyes tracked along the rock formation that the Fremen called Quirz al-Ashemmi in the old tongue, which meant “more Arabic sounding bullshit,” but when said with a Choksoba lilt, and the twist of eyebrow which implied that one was speaking to a nephew or first cousin in a situation involving three legged seating accomodations, such as a stool, or low backed chair, it would mean “the same rock formation I've mentioned several times previously, but you don't know why.”
Abruptly, the presence of the lumpen Gurney Halleck conjoined itself with Leto's awareness, and the inkvine scar on his jaw writhed like Shai-hulud as he spoke. “It's page 475, child. Don't you think it's time you proved to me that there's at least some semblance of a plot to this book, or some point to the parched expanse of hallucinations and meaninglessness you've made me sit through?” His hand crept to his crysknife in a way that would imply tension, if you had any idea what in holy hell was going on.
In that moment, with Gurney impatiently checking his chronothopter, it all became clear to Leto. Time wasn't a dimension at all, but a perception of all things equivocal and impermanent, as those things interpose themselves on a backdrop of the self, the spice, the now. The now, as a representation of the self, which for Leto was a many-self, a composite of past selves, numerous to innumerability, but captured in one friendly liege, known only as Huflungpoo. And so it was then that Leto knew he was ready to proceed the plot, at long last, so we can stop wasting our time in this ridiculous peyote fueled vision quest. He turned a smiling, sun blushed face up to Gurney.
“You think me a child? I am so much more. I am the memories of the past, the vision of the future, the incredible disinterest of the now. Gurney! Gurney! Can you see the gift I will give to you? The possibilities I remove and the probabilities I create? Now, quickly, my old friend, old self, let's have a strange non-conversation, in which you use your knife as a visual aid to convey the fine line I'm walking with my words, and the tension of this scene which can only be appreciated by the drug addled mind which authored it!”
Halleck's hand tensed on his crysknife, and he withdrew it enough that Leto could see the sun glinting from a hair's breadth of worm tooth. “Watch what you say,” Gurney growled, “my loyalty is with the Lady Jessica, and I'm going to respond aggressively to the nonsense you just barfed up.”
Leto smoothed the sand at his side, felt its flinty taste at the back of his pallete, caught up a handfull and let if fall between his fingers. “Time, Gurney. Like sand. Like water. Like spice. J'ete plus de les stylo sur la table! Plus de les stylos! That was French Gurney. And in italics. I know now how to advance the plot, Gurney. Indicate a reduction in tension, again via your kife.”
Gurney seemed satisfied, and the glint of wormtooth disappeared. “Aye, lad, I'm a warrior and a lutemaster. But I play the lute a ton, and never ever fight. Now speak the words I need to hear in order to advance the plot.”
Leto dusted his hands on his thighs, and let understanding come to him. PSYCHE! He didn't understand it at all! Back to acid trip! If you skip ahead, you might miss something that explains why Hussain likes this crap! And then you'd also have wasted your time, because you missed the point! So, next paragraph, sucker! You lose, acid wins!
Leto felt his conscious slip parallel to the timeflow, but outside it, watching a million Gurney Hallecks, a million possible outcomes, so many resulting in a crysknife, point first buried under his chin, so many terrible purposes, like the spice threads on a sietch loom, clattering and scraping against one another, terrifying Leto with their persistance, their certainty, their impossibility. Leto felt the father-presence rise up to him, dark and warm, comforting him. Use caution, my son. The paths are many, and singular. Never forget that inner voices use italics, and not quotes, as it was decreed by Ibn Harq.
Gurney Halleck watched the child's eyes roll back in his head, and blew out a disgusted snort. “I'm going to go play Gears of War, this is fucking bullshit.”