Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)

>unlike what's suggested (if not quite stated) in the film Lawrence of Arabia

The scene from the movie is based on this passage from chapter 20 of Seven Pillars, which suggests that while he was familiar with Arab clothing before the war, there was a period of time when he was in British army uniform during the Arab conflict, until he was asked by Feisal to change into Arab clothes:

"Suddenly Feisal asked me if I would wear Arab clothes like his own while in the camp. I should find it better for my own part, since it was a comfortable dress in which to live Arab-fashion as we must do. Besides, the tribesmen would then understand how to take me. The only wearers of khaki in their experience had been Turkish officers, before whom they took up an instinctive defence. If I wore Meccan clothes, they would behave to me as though I were really one of the leaders; and I might slip in and out of Feisal’s tent without making a sensation which he had to explain away each time to strangers. I agreed at once, very gladly; for army uniform was abominable when camel-riding or when sitting about on the ground; and the Arab things, which I had learned to manage before the war, were cleaner and more decent in the desert."

Also, the below quote is from the introduction, which I might add is perhaps the most beautiful introduction I've ever read. I sometimes go back just to read it:

"In my case, the effort for these years to live in the dress of Arabs, and to imitate their mental foundation, quitted me of my English self, and let me look at the West and its conventions with new eyes: they destroyed it all for me, At the same time I could not sincerely take on the Arab skin: it was an affectation only. Easily was a man made an infidel, but hardly might he be converted to another faith. I had dropped one form and not taken on the other, and was become like Mohammed’s coffin in our legend, with a resultant feeling of intense loneliness in life, and a contempt, not for other men, but for all they do."

The discrepancy is easy to explain; Frank Herbert never owned a copy of Seven Pillars but was instead inspired by a manuscript of desert adventures that he’d found on a train as a boy whilst holidaying in the UK.

What's ironic is how people often point to plot points in many franchises (Star Wars, GoT, etc) as being derivative of Dune... Yet Dune itself is fairly derivative of other works

Related Herbert audio interview on the origins of Dune. Sorry it’s a YouTube link. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A-mLVVJkH7I

I do think it's unfair when people claim Dune is a straight retelling of T.E. Lawrence's story. For instance I think the messianic aspects are drawn from other episodes in history, like the Mahdist War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdist_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion

If you really wanted to you could say even George RR Martin was influenced by it.

(Game of Thrones spoilers below)

Look at the character arc of Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones. You will find some similarities there too both with Dune and with Lawrence of Arabia. But with a female character rather than a male.

Are you saying he knew their ways as if he was born to them?

> make me think the author isn't aware that Lawrence had already spent a lot of time in the Middle East

it is actually mentioned in the article. you misread here, with the point being that knowing how to do something is not the same as accepting it for a normal activity.

Plus he also had the smarts to use plausible mechanisms to remove advanced computers (the Butlerian Jihad) and nuclear weapons (some sort of extreme taboo based on a historical event IIRC? it's been a while..) from the technologies available to the Dune universe. This allowed the exploration of all sorts of human developmental possibilities - the Bene Gesserit and mentats, advanced schools of martial art and mental discipline etc.

On the topic of the Butlerian Jihad, and its echo of the historic Islamic taboo on art representing living things - looking around the current world and bearing in mind how twisted out of shape our social conversation has arguably become so quickly given that iPhones only landed in 2007... you have to wonder whether it is such an outlandish idea. Looking at the news over the last few weeks and months makes me realise that it is incredibly hard to see outside your historical moment, until things just happen! There are many possibilities and reality can get weird...

> and Herbert was a child of the 1960s psychedelic culture

Was he really a child of this culture? He was in his 40s by the time Dune came out in 1965, with large parts of it written in the early 60s, when psychadelics seemed more of a fringe thing used in beatnik circles, academic labs and prisons.

OTOH, the concept of invaders seizing territory for spice or other unique natural materials (Dutch and Portuguese in the Moluccas, Japan annexing Taiwan) drugs shifting empires (Opium) and special substances and techniques needed for long-distance navigation (citrus, astrolabe) had been around for centuries.

Plus oil geopolitics

It bothers me that this doesn't actually sound that far from what a lot of folks seem to genuinely think? People are desperate for a panacea. But only if it works on the elites, it seems. Heaven forbid we come up with something that merely helps people lose weight.

Worse, a lot of people mistake euphoria moments for being right.

"we have prophets at home" : the prophets at home : ketamine and dmt fueled madness

My memory of the book is faded and relying on the recent movie. Why is the rebellion in your opinion Islam like. Dethroned prince, lost prince, rebellion against colonization, empire mining a colony are very much a common trope

A friend raving about it got me to go see the 1989 reissue, and I was similarly overwhelmed/blown-away. The intermission only added to the sense of it being an event.

Last year, I dragged friends of mine to see it in the theater. They, too, were amazed. Now, we've been reading up on those times.

The reading list, so far:

'Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East', Soctt Anderson

'Seven Pillars of Wisdom', T.E. Lawrence

'A Peace to End All Peace', David Fromkin

A minor point, but it was hardly the first epic movie to have an intermission. Gone With the Wind has one, for example, and is a similar length.

It's such a great movie! The entire story of El Aurens is extremely fascinating.

Too cool. I've always wanted to watch this and you've inspired me.

Interesting to note that the recent Villeneuve adaptation seems to lean heavily into the latter interpretation (Paul and Jessica especially are ruthless and want revenge/power) while the Lynch adaptation was probably more of the former (Paul really wants to do good).

That's what makes the rest of the series so fun!

Was looking for this comment, thanks. There was also a very lengthy article by s.o. about the fact which traces the origins of many details.

The presently discussed article ‘Paul Lawrence of Dune’ sound as if written for political goals, rather than actual understanding of the origins of Dune.

While we're on this subject Imam Shamil had an interesting contemporary counterpart figure that I think deserves more recognition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunta-Hajji

I read Sabres of Paradise and it absolutely had a lot of parallels with Dune, and was a major source. Good book too

Lol. More like Dune lifts wholesale from Sabres of Paradise, translating the stories about Imam Shamyl into space, only adding some bits of LSD inspired trippiness. If anything, Herbert toned down the historical accounts. On the other hand, Lesley Blanch went for the dramatic over the historical in Sabres. The story about the Sultan that drowned his son's mistress, for example, was from a Greek movie version.

I wish there was some logic to the O'Reilly's website, I occasionally stumble upon great material such as this, thank you.

Thanks for that. Some of Dune books read more like political science really...extraordinary body of work

Wait, is putting out a match with your fingers a superpower these days? I can do that very easily, and it barely hits a 2 on the 0-10 pain-scale.

"The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts"

Insane the full movie is just there on YouTube.

This didn't sit well with me either.

In the movie, Lawrence tries to resolve his apparent split loyalties by bringing the Arab and British interests into alignment and has a couple of initial exhilarating successes, but he ultimately fails, badly. Neither the Arabs nor the British live up to his idealistic expectations. The British use him in ways contrary to his intentions. He also discovers that his own idealism is compromised by his egotism and sadism.

The beautiful, dramatic desert landscape, the danger of Lawrence's mission, the high political stakes for the Arab tribes, and the historical context of war all help create an illusion of the possibility of heroic transcendence that is deeply inspiring, but in the end, it is all human and mundane: human vices at the small scale and human politics at the large scale. There is no transcendence.

I can see how some people walking out of the theater might have only remembered the feelings stirred up by the beautiful cinematography and the epic score, and forgotten absolutely everything else, but I think it's a better movie for sweeping the viewer up into that feeling before dropping them down into the political squabbling, betrayal, disappointment, and tragedy.

It's very much the British Empire view of the world. Read Kipling's India tales.

The movie makes if fairly clear that he is a political tool to help Britain win the war. And he receives the provided assistance to help win the war, not to improve their lives.

Its only Lawrence himself who romanticizes his own journy and hopes preserve some form of democratic nationalism. Only to be then synically stabed in the back literally everybody, the tribal leaders, the english politicans and of course the arab rules.

My favoirte part of the movie is when the english leader and the arab rules both agree that its good that he is finally gone. This is the origin of the modern battle inside of the middle east between islamic populism (muslim brotherhood) and ruling dynasties (Saud).

The movie made this very clear and expicite, and Lawrence himself knew that this was his role, even when he tried to do the best he can for the people he liked within these constraints.