I think the formality of the dialogue works in the sense that the Atriedes are hereditary nobility at the top of a very tall and rigid hierarchy and that the Fremen are meant to seem like an extremely formal, ritual-bound people; in both cases that makes them seem "naturally stilted", if that makes sense. There's almost no speaking characters who are "ordinary people" in any sense--say, just a regular old water-seller in the city or a spice-smuggler or a dock loader, etc.
I hear you on just skipping past some things--sooner or later I'm going to write in my re-readings about entire chunks of stuff in famous SF/fantasy works that I read when I was younger that I would just repeatedly avoid any time I read them. With Dune, I think the things that would always grab me were just the basics of the reversal-of-fortune plot--Paul's family is attacked and his father murdered; Paul proves himself to the people who takes him in; Paul hatches a plan; the plan succeeds wildly. The Chosen One mysticism surrounding that added flavor but I didn't really fully grasp the idea behind it (and Herbert didn't really explain it more fully anyway until Dune Messiah and Children of Dune anyway). Stuff like what spice was actually for, the Guild Navigators, the Sardaukar, the politics of the Landsraad, all of that didn't really sink in for me until an adult re-reading.
My usual way to retcon this kind of excessive formality is by resorting to framing it as history-- that is, the book that we're reading isn't like events that are happening live as we watch, it's a cleaned-up version generated later, with all the "ums" and "uhs" and in-jokes smoothed out, to give something that would be judged more "appropriate" by people reading it within the hierarchical society at a later time. This is occasionally stated more or less explicitly in the book itself, and some better authors will play with the expectations that creates.
I have a harder time with that here, though there are occasional nods in that direction, because the book otherwise has such detailed access to people's inner thoughts and the like. But even when it's depicting conversations between friends and intimates-- and even people's interior monologues-- it's really stiff and formal at a level that un-suspends my disbelief.
My recollection of the sequels is that there's a LOT more talking about What It All Means. I'm not sure I'm up for re-reading those, though; this was a nice bit of nostalgia, but the Dune universe is kind of ridiculous in a lot of ways, so I don't feel that much need to spend more time there.
I think the formality of the dialogue works in the sense that the Atriedes are hereditary nobility at the top of a very tall and rigid hierarchy and that the Fremen are meant to seem like an extremely formal, ritual-bound people; in both cases that makes them seem "naturally stilted", if that makes sense. There's almost no speaking characters who are "ordinary people" in any sense--say, just a regular old water-seller in the city or a spice-smuggler or a dock loader, etc.
I hear you on just skipping past some things--sooner or later I'm going to write in my re-readings about entire chunks of stuff in famous SF/fantasy works that I read when I was younger that I would just repeatedly avoid any time I read them. With Dune, I think the things that would always grab me were just the basics of the reversal-of-fortune plot--Paul's family is attacked and his father murdered; Paul proves himself to the people who takes him in; Paul hatches a plan; the plan succeeds wildly. The Chosen One mysticism surrounding that added flavor but I didn't really fully grasp the idea behind it (and Herbert didn't really explain it more fully anyway until Dune Messiah and Children of Dune anyway). Stuff like what spice was actually for, the Guild Navigators, the Sardaukar, the politics of the Landsraad, all of that didn't really sink in for me until an adult re-reading.
My usual way to retcon this kind of excessive formality is by resorting to framing it as history-- that is, the book that we're reading isn't like events that are happening live as we watch, it's a cleaned-up version generated later, with all the "ums" and "uhs" and in-jokes smoothed out, to give something that would be judged more "appropriate" by people reading it within the hierarchical society at a later time. This is occasionally stated more or less explicitly in the book itself, and some better authors will play with the expectations that creates.
I have a harder time with that here, though there are occasional nods in that direction, because the book otherwise has such detailed access to people's inner thoughts and the like. But even when it's depicting conversations between friends and intimates-- and even people's interior monologues-- it's really stiff and formal at a level that un-suspends my disbelief.
My recollection of the sequels is that there's a LOT more talking about What It All Means. I'm not sure I'm up for re-reading those, though; this was a nice bit of nostalgia, but the Dune universe is kind of ridiculous in a lot of ways, so I don't feel that much need to spend more time there.