The Faded Sun, a discussion

Today I finished The Faded Sun omnibus, and really liked it. Despite being written 30 years ago it didn't feel the least dated - on the contrary I think the issues discussed are maybe even more important now, in this age of distrust of strangers.

Whenever I put it down to do other things, like WORK , I found my brain would return to it, unbidden, to process the story and the issues talked about.

To which extent to we judge the Other by blanket statement?

I live in a small country, only 9 mil inhabitants. Within this small population there's great variation, to the extent that we can talk about local habits and customs; even local languages, or dialects impenetrable by others. Despite this we often dismiss others, from larger countries, as being 'german', or 'american', or whatever. As we in Sweden have the right to our differences, but US citizens are all alike...

And when we meet with the Other - who; they or we, dictates the terms on which to speak?

Books that makes my brain tick away by itself - I love them!!!

Oh, well, I'd might as well add something about the actual BOOK, dontcha think

Maybe it was because I myself has a severely sore throat at the moment, almost unable to breathe without pain, but I really felt with Duncan and his struggles in the thin cold atmospheres, bot at Kesrith and Kutath. It was like I myself struggled through those endless lifeless sandy deserts, and having been on the fringes of a Saharan sandstorm I can also feel how sand gets everywhere... how eyes, ears, nose, every crevice in the human body suddenly aches with gnawing sand, never to go away.
How on earth did he manage to get by without washing in WATER?!

And the mri... when clothes got filthy - did they discard them, making new ones? For surely there were no water to do the wash-up in...

As for the regul they made me think of Jabba the Hut, as in the remade version. Truly repulsive.

Busifer nadi:

On new contact: one would prefer to think that deciding who gets to speak in what language or first or whatever would depend on the amiability (or not) of those involved. A certain flexibility is required of both sides to find an agreeable ground (middle or not).
On not washing in water: very fine sand makes a good cleaner (removes sweat, other dirt, soaks up hair oils, cuts down on the possibility of personal vermin) expressly because of its abrasiveness. Alternately: in the land of saunas, you need to ask?!
On Regul: I agree with you there!
On US citizens: ah! No, we are not all alike! Whole ranges of "dialects" over here, some deliberately invented to create differences.

Werd ... fo' shizzle, yo.

Griffin nadi, slightly off topic, but no saunas where I am - that's Finland/Soumi; I'm in Sweden
I can think of lots of way to clean oneself, the scandinavians (think vikings...) of old used urine to wash clothes in, and technically that's a good way... but, my, do it stink!
Of course, it's better than saline water, which in some cases were the alternative, and humanity wouldn't have survived if we'd had too sensitive nasal organs... but to me, a BATH is the decent way to get clean.

In fact, I'd like to have an atevi style tub. We'll redo our bathroom sometime in the coming years - my husband doesn't know what is coming his way!

As to the first 'question' that wasn't as much a question as reflection; a thought. There's no 'right' answer, but if the parties involved understand these complexities the odds for a peaceful outcome multiplies... or so I think.

I too have just finished the Faded Sun trilogy. What itched me about these books was the concept of a really unchanging society .......... over many thousands of years. They survive by moving instead of evolving. The kel, who have to have some flexability ... at least when they are hired out, are kept illiterate (and as a book addict, that REALLY bothered me!) and when they get home they are obedient children. I liked the visual image of the world that I got, but I cannot reconcile the image of the kel as the explorers of the universe with their static culture.
While I find it a little disconcerting that Duncan after years of being an independent operator, I do find it believable that he would find it appealing to go back to an almost child-like state of obedience and illiteracy after a total lifetime of war.

I too got a bad feeling of the Kel kept illiterate; not only that, I've a hard time of accepting the caste system as such, with the Sen being keepers of the knowledge and the Kath as being, in all actuality, a harem.

All in all the mri are not a nice species, and still we (or at least I) sympathised with them and their struggle to survive. I still wonder why, and I hope this talk here will give me the opportunity to dissect and identify some of my feelings.

The issue about the society being kept stable for 80.000 years... improbable, but I don't read sf/f and expect everything to be VERY probable, and the rest of the story caught me enough to stop worrying even about the illiteracy, which REALLY irked me in the beginning

I think I have mentioned that these are the books that turned me into a die hard fan. The illiteracy thing didn't bother me as controlling knowledge is a medieval tool for controlling people. What tickled me was that when the Most Secret was revealed it was not the mystical path to heaven but the real path to home.

umm I really should reread them

Aelith > Illiteracy: I agree, it's a classic power construct, as is the *argh - language falters!!!* division of tasks between different parts of the population (castes, in this case).
It's a whole another book, but I once had a discussion about The Lions of Al-Rassan. It's one of my fave books, but couldn't warm to it because of the gender roles - women were generally subordinate, tools, or not even worthy of attention. As it's set in a fictional moorish era Spain I had no problems with that - it's realistic vis a vis the era depicted.
That I wouldn't accept such circumstances is another thing altogether.

In the case with the mri I think I sympathise with them because they are threatened with extinction; they're underdogs. Their rigid culture, with their stubborn refusal to meet new cultures, their refusal to let themselves be influenced by others, only makes them them more vulnerable - in some sense it's what have made them all but erased from the universe.
We'd like to think that this is a very un-human behaviour, but I think it not. Lots of humans wants things to stay the same forever, and some cultures have tried to make it such. I'm no expert in Japanese history but I seem to remember that in the early 18th century people meeting with non-Japanese people got executed - they did not want foreign influences (lots of other reasons as well, of course, but then I guess the mri had some sensible reasons for their attitude as well, when they started doing things their way...)

I just started FS and I'm still very much in the beginning, despite sneaking off into the quiet corners during work so that I could read a chapter or two.

I am loving this book. Something about the desert, all encompassing, violent, immense. Great backdrop. And I like the mri, a lot. I think our own society mirrors them to a (small) extent - football players that can barely read despite higher education, higher academics with zero social abilities, girls marrying before graduating high school because "they're in love". Hmmm...

I didn't have a problem accepting the idea of a static society, although 80,000 years is a looong time. Perhaps evolution hasn't occurred because it didn't need to? Society's needs were being met and nothing needed improvement? Isn't evolution a forced necessity, requiring a catalyst?

Leaving the general topic of evolution to the side I think the mri consciously have protected their original culture, trying to uphold it. Think of how they demanded forgetting the past, retreating into the old ways, whenever a change occurs?
If something I think maybe the hal'ari, the high speech, should had change somewhat.
Sorry Thea, I realise this is some kind of spoiler; you're not supposed to know about those 80.000 years yet, I think? Or have you speed-read?

Were they not sent on jehad? they were not expected to return?

I think they somehow where expected to return, but jihad? I don't know... I thought some left because the sun was dying, or because the e'ele didn't want their service anymore?
And there's hints of them only wanting to serve to get a foothold, and then to move on, to find a new world, possibly, for whatever reason? But they're not out to kill all 'unbelievers', or to convert the heathens...
At least that's how I read it...

mutter mutter (must reread before open mouth)

And humans are?