If you've read Dune... conversations?

[asterroc]

I am currently listening to an unabridged audiobook¹ of Frank Herbert's Dune with a full cast doing the different characters. I am wondering about the editorial/production choice to have a full cast, and about the claim of unabridged.

The conversations as read have very little "Paul said," "Jessica replied" sort of commentary. They tend to be only what the individual people actually said. For example, if Jessica were and Paul were talking about his homework over breakfast, and Leto walked in in the middle of it...

"So did you finish your homework last night?"
"Very quickly, it was just algebra."
"And what did you learn from it?"
"If you drop a book from the top of a building, its motion is governed by a quadratic equation."
"That isn't what I was taught, since you also have to take air friction into account."
"But you can simplify the equations if you make the assumption that there isn't any air friction."
"And we haven't gotten up to air friction yet."²

In the audio book, since there are three different readers for the lines said by Paul, Jessica, and Leto, it is obvious who said what, but there aren't any "Leto walked into the conversation and commented that..." that in a print version of the book would indicate who said what in a long exchange, or if three people are involved in the conversation. Is this lack of "Paul said" actually in the original text, or was there an editorial decision to remove those? If the original text did not include any "Paul said"s, that would explain the production choice to have a cast.

And while I'm asking, is there a name for doing "Paul said"s, or for not doing them?

¹The production is copyright 2007 Audio Renaissance, and narrated by a cast listed on Audible.com as Scott Brick, Orlagh Cassidy, Euan Morton,and Simon Vance, but possibly including more.
²In case you're curious, my intent here was for the speakers to be JPJPLJP, though the last L and J could be swapped and still have it make sense.

Comments

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I'm reading it because you told me to. :) I think I may have read it in the past, a lot of it seems familiar to me. I get occasional flashes of feminist critique of it (characters are male by default, with female added only when it makes a difference), but I know that in the context of its time it was progressive to have Jessica be so powerful and to have a whole order of powerful women politicians. I'll analyze more when I'm done, and remind me if I don't.

[sildra.livejournal.com]

Dune's portrayal of women really bothered me when I read it, and I think it may have been one of the major reasons I didn't like the book. I won't elaborate because 1) I read it when I was 14, which was quite a long time ago, and 2) I don't know if you've gotten to the parts I'm thinking of yet. It is a fairly common criticism of the book, and I'm told it gets worse as the series progresses (although I had no desire to continue after the first book).

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Considering your and freakylynx's conflicting comments about the rest of the series, I am now fascinated.

[sildra.livejournal.com]

Well, mine is based only on what friends have told me over the years...

[freakylynx.livejournal.com]

I'd be curious to see how you feel about the later books when the Bene Gesserit have much more significant roles (they take less and less the role of villain as the series goes on) and especially when they start dealing with the Honored Matres.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Considering your and sildra's conflicting comments about the rest of the series, I am now fascinated.