Round Ireland with an iPhone: Belfast #3

A day in December past, Ormeau Park, Belfast. The air was crisp chill, the sunlight pale and hypnotic. One tree had bark of a peculiar orange shade, made more surreal by the way a sun shaft illuminated its branches. A bird puffed its body up against the breeze and sang in muted tones. I walked and breathed the mist and light.

Dawn is coming: On Dune old and new

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My first reaction was ‘Oh No!’

I dreaded the day a Dune remake would appear because I cannot imagine anything better than David Lynch’s classic, if controversial, 1984 movie; nor can I see anyone supplanting Kyle MacLachlan as the young Paul Atreides.

And yet…since I saw the list of new cast and crew members, I am warming to the idea of a fresh incarnation.  No one forgets all the previous ‘Dr Who’ embodiments, after all, so why not anticipate the intrigue of a new Dune? With Blade Runner 2049‘s Denis Villeneuve in the director’s seat, excitement is mounting. And Call Me By Your Name‘s Timothée Chalamet will play the young Duke Paul, while Charlotte Rampling fills the role of Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam.

The Novels

I came to the novels after the film, an experience that, to begin with, actually enriched the film even more for me, then made me thirsty for more on-screen portrayals of the richly detailed sequels and back stories.

Themes that stood out to me in the books, much more than in any filmed versions so far, are the rich descriptions of the various ecologies of the planets, and the mind-bending cosmology and parapsychology of the navigators and the space they fold to enable instant transportation across distances of light years.

Herbert‘s imagination is captivating and the novels are a perfect combination of readability and sophistication. I think it’s time to re-visit the books and to build anticipation for a new dawn on a new Arakkis. Roll on Dune.