Quote:The Fremen were experts in that quality that the ancients called spanningsbogen, the self-imposed delay between desiring an object, and reaching out for the object.
That's probably a misquote there, but it's close enough from memory. (And I think it needs an umlaut.)
Spanningsbogen. Literally, IIRC, the moment at which the drawn bow is at full tension.
I've always had a fondness for races/nationalities in fiction (and reality) that, by dint of training, environment, breeding, whatever, have abilities beyond what we consider normal.
I'm not sure where it started. It might even have been Donaldson's Haruchai. But them, the Fremen, and Jordan's Aiel have always struck a chord in me.
The moment in Dune where we realise how completely the Fremen can master their environment is always a great one for me. It's in Chapter 9 or 10 IIRC, as Leto evacuates the crawler they're inspecting, and, flying away, Paul looks down and sees two men gliding across the sand where, moments before, a huge worm had taken the factory.
And then later in battle, the shock that everybody shows at how easily the Fremen defeat, even capture alive, the Sardukar.
The theme of Fremen ability is strong through the book. At the end, Shaddam expresses amazement, even admiration, that a strike force of his personal troops barely managed to escape from a Fremen defensive carried out by old men, women and children.
A formidable people indeed.
And yet the Fremen were not always so. The adab tells us that once they were soft city dwellers, on Bela Teguese (Betelgeuse no doubt). And as the series progresses, even in the very next book, we see the Fremen slowly become shadows of their former selves, down to the lowly Museum Fremen of Leto II, mockeries of a once proud and strong culture.
And this decline brings another Donaldson quote to mind...where FoamFollower says "Privation refines the soul."
Take away that privation, take away the need for struggle, and in a generation or two, people soften.
I'd like to know what you all think about them.
--A ____________________________________
A sense of the sardonic preserves a man from believing in his own pretensions. -The Sayings Of Maud'Dib<i></i>
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