“Paul saw how Stilgar had been transformed from the Fremen naib to a creature of the Lisan al-Gaib, a receptacle for awe and obedience. It was a lessening of the man, and Paul felt the ghost-wind of the jihad in it. I have seen a friend become a worshiper, he thought. In a rush of […]
“There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace––those qualities you find always in that which the true artist captures. You can find it in the turning of the seasons, in the way sand trails along a ridge, in the branch clusters of the creosote […]
“He sensed it, the race consciousness that he could not escape. There was a sharpened clarity, the inflow of data, the cold precision of his awareness. He sank to the floor, sitting with his back against rock, giving himself up to it. Awareness flowed into that timeless stratum where he could view time, sensing the […]
“He heard the sand rumbling. Every Fremen knew the sound, could distinguish it immediately from the noises of worms or other desert life. Somewhere beneath him, the pre-spice mass had accumulated enough water and organic matter from the little makers, had reached the critical stage of wild growth. A gigantic bubble of carbon dioxide was […]
“My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. ‘Something cannot emerge from nothing,’ he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable ‘the truth’ can be.” ––Dune, by Frank Herbert, loc. 4259 “The intense view of these manifold contradictions and imperfections in […]
I don’t know what state the revenge narrative was in before The Count of Monte Cristo hit the scene, but this book remains a paragon of the genre nearly two centuries after publication. Alexandre Dumas’s classic is deeply concerned with the character of human happiness and suffering, and challenges readers to cherish what good fortune […]
A whole class of first-years could have graduated from Hogwarts since 2007, when J.K. Rowling shocked the world by concluding the Harry Potter series with a book that delighted the vast majority of her rabid fans. It’s still a wonder she pulled it off, given the pressure she must have felt to avoid being tarred […]
“What’s with all the sentimentality about nature anyway, and the kowtowing to it, as though adhering to the ‘natural’ had some sort of ethical force? It’s not like nature is such a friend to womankind, not like nature doesn’t just blithely kill women off on a random basis during childbirth or anything. No one who faces […]
“I think the future of something we may no longer call feminism must include a deeper inquiry into men,” writes Rebecca Solnit in the closing pages of Men Explain Things to Me. “Feminism sought and seeks to change the whole human world; many men are on board with the project, but how it benefits men, […]
“I argued that you don’t know if your actions are futile; that you don’t have the memory of the future; that the future is indeed dark, which is the best thing it could be; and that, in the end, we always act in the dark. The effects of your actions may unfold in ways you […]