Dune

My friend Laleh's review (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4955092306) starts: “I'm not quite sure why I expected to dislike one of the most popular science fiction books of all time, but I did.” I felt the same, going in. When Denis's DUNE came out a few years back, people raved. I kept hearing, “you've just GOT to see it on a big screen!” Sometimes when things are universally loved and praised, and I'm told how perfect they are, I have a spiteful urge to abstain. I didn't go see the movie. Eventually, when I watched it on my TV at home, nothing really stood out to me. The second movie did get to me and I really enjoyed it.

Thus, the book. I found myself thinking a lot about the adaptation choices that Denis made in his (so far) two films. Most of these are quite interesting! Only a little of the complex webs between characters are lost, and sometimes for the better. I heard once that the book has so much inner narration that it would be “unadaptable” — but I think Denis proves otherwise. Reflecting on the two parts of Denis's film and my first read of the book, I think the adaptive choices made work.

I am impressed at how this book jumps from character to character seamlessly and in a way that does not cause confusion or consternation. There is an interweaving theme of ‘plans within plans within plans' and ‘feints within feints within feints' and the reader is aware and unaware of these at all times, often not overtly.

At an event recently, I asked an author (of a different book) about a choice they made to start a novel in such a way as to be confusing. The author explained that they wanted the reader to be confused. They went on to say that they didn't like the notion that writing had to be accessible to everyone or easy to read. I can't quote the person exactly because this has been a few weeks ago, but I've been thinking about their statements. I didn't agree in the moment, and after reading Dune I feel even more sure of my belief. Writers can create confusion and a sense of unknowing without making the reader frustrated and feeling stupid. This is something the author at the event—in my view—failed at. It's something Herbert demonstrates mastery at in Dune.

I started reading with some concern that the films would overwhelm my imaginings of characters and locations. I didn't have this problem, in fact I found myself thinking a little more about Lynch's Dune than Denis's (and even then, little, as I've only seen stills). My mental illustration of the Baron Harkonnen is remarkably different from that in Denis's film (I had a lot of trouble shaking Stellan's incredible accent, though). The one character/casting I had trouble dislodging was Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck. I resisted it at first, but in the end found that I really like the casting and enjoyed it even more as I continued reading.

Another friend asked me, early in my reading, if I found the book too philosophic. I hadn't encountered much of the philosophy in the book, yet. Or, I had but didn't detect it. In the far past I subjected myself to Ayn Rand's scribbles and thus often forget that philosophy doesn't have to be in-your-face monologuing for a hundred pages. Herbert weaves in a lot, sometimes in-your-face (“an old B-G axiom:..”), sometimes with subtlety. I found I enjoyed these little tidbits, and enjoyed sorting through the broader philosophical exploration of identity.

I will certainly read, at least, Dune Messiah, if only because the ending to this book is so abrupt. I almost feel it incomplete, as though there's a missing coda.

—Mild story details follow—

“No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero,” a character says. Throughout much of the book, Paul Atreides contends with visions and his overriding desire to prevent them. The book has ideas on identity, prophecy, and most of all self-fulfilling prophecy. The way Herbert weaves these together is splendid. There is a time jump that covers a lot of work, and I wish we'd gotten to experience some of what is in there. There are several key events that I think a reader could point to as a “moment of transformation” for a certain character, but I don't know that there is any one moment. I think we experience a gradual building of ethos and a look at the way in which the stories we tell others become the stories we tell ourselves, and how quickly these can cause us to betray ourselves.

I was not planning to read the other books in the series, but I feel compelled to at least read Messiah. As much as I enjoyed the book, especially the last few hundred pages, it comes to an abrupt stop that left me a little bumfuzzled.