Concerning Books #008: Review of "Dune"

   The following is an official book review of the Most-Discerning League of Distinguished Literary Gentlemen, as published by Magistrate Norton.

“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.”

 

 

   And you thought Lord of the Rings was complex. Dune is an award-winning science fiction novel published in 1965 by Frank Herbert, and it is a sprawling tale. Dune concerns itself with the titular planet, also known as Arrakis, wherein and only wherein the universe's most precious substance can be found: the spice, melange. Not only does this magical material help Guildmasters navigate the vastness of galaxies by folding space, not only is it dangerously addictive, not only is it the foundation of mankind's space-economy, but it also plays into the plot. Neat, huh?

 

   Dune is unusual in its storytelling in that it can't make up its mind about points of view. The narrative will jump from one character's thoughts to another's and to another's all in the same scene. Considering the "plans within plans" that thrust on the book's heavy plot, this may have been necesssary for Hebert to include in his work; we may need to hear the Baron's, the Duke's, Paul's, his Mother's and the Fremen's own thoughts in order to understand what the hey is happening, but it doesn't make it that much easier of a read. Let's face it, we're used to reading from one point of view per scene, mostly. Dune breaks those rules.

 

   Another rule of literature which Dune demolishes is the need, or tendency, for authors to simplify. This is especially true of modern writers. A clean, curt, concise narrative will have only enough detail to hold up the story and move everything along. In contrast, Dune is a bloated monster. On page one, you're practically assaulted with all kinds of foreign ideas, names, concepts and places. Luckily, there's no aliens in Dune, so the fact that at least you'll be dealing with humans helps ground Dune a little. But there's no help for fumbling over all the nitty-gritty of ths galactic, monolithic space-novel, with words like gom jabbar, Lisan-alGaib, Bene Gesserit and Kwisatz Haderach. More than once I had to stop and wonder how to say it all, and more than once I had to stop and ask what it all means.

 

   With themes like politics, religion, power, prophecy, racism, economics, subterfuge and eugenics, it's no wonder Dune is as big as it is and that it spawned so many sequels and spin-offs.

 

   The Dune novel breaks down into three books: dune, muad'dib, and the prophet. Each "chapter" in each book begins with some kind of quotation from various fictional documents that come off as historical. This gives Dune the flavor of a historical novel, albeit a fictional one, obviously. Of the three books, I felt dune to be by far the most interesting and engaging. I'll shortly explain why.

 

   In the first book, dune, House Atreides, led by the stern Duke Leto Atreides, has been called to take up leadership over the planet Arrakis and thereby the spice. But the Duke' son, Paul Atreides has misgivings about Arrakis and the fate of his father there, misgivings which are only deepened by the appearance of the Reverend Mother on Paul's home planet of Caladan.

 

   Turns out there's an elaborate (and I mean elaborate) plot set in motion by the Emperor Shaddam IV and the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, himself a sworn enemy of House Atreides. The villain describes his plan as "a feint within a feint within a feint", in reference to the delicate knife-style fightin which seems to dominate hand-to-hand combat in the Dune universe.

 

   Most of the first book concerns itself with the playing out of the plot against Atreides, though we're told very early on that Dr. Yueh is the traitor who would bring down the Duke. Thus robbed of the suspense, we have only to see the characters putter around like blind mice in the corridors of a tiny labyrinth from which there can be no escape.

 

   The Duke dies thanks to the traitor, the Baron survives a failed assassination and House Harkonnen resumes control of Arrakis. Paul Atreides, now Duke, flees with his mother, the Lady Jessica, into the desert.

 

   The first book seemed to me to be the most human, as its characters portray the most emotion and suffer their worst failures. This first part is the best and most engaging. What follows somehow grows colder.

 

   The second book, muad'dib, is concerned with Paul and Jessica encountering the Fremen, the indiginous peoples of Arrakis, who, they discover, are capable of surviving any hazard the desert can throw at them. The Fremen have mastered water-conservation and rationing. They are a warrior race. They can even harness the great sandworms of the desert and ride them where they wish.

 

   Paul and Jessica find entrance into one of the Fremen groups, wherein Paul quickly learns the ways of Fremen life, complete with the prophecies they have a coming messiah who will liberate them. During this time, Paul becomes less and less human, and less and less interesting. He develops a kind of prescience, the ability to see dimly into the future, where a far off holy war rages in his name. He attributes this new ability to the spice saturating the desert. His mother, a member of the Bene Gesserit, a conniving school of religious women who are trying to bring into being a superhuman called the Kwisatz Haderach through manipulating bloodlines... whew... she plays Paul and herself into the prophecies of the Fremen, only to find out that they are startlingly accurate of her son.

 

   Paul learns more stuff and finds a woman, Jessica becomes Reverend Mother of the Fremen, Paul's sister Alia is born, the Baron plots for the Imperial throne, the reader is affronted by countless rituals, ceremonies and jargon out of Fremen history and culture, yadda yadda and... book three.

 

   In book three, the prophet, Paul, now assuming the title of Duke of Arrakis and Muad'Dib of the Fremen, puts plans into motion to retake the planet and oust the rulership of the Harkonnens. Somehow, book three is even less interesting than book two. Paul is now the Kwisatz Haderach, a super-being, but he comes off as cold and uncaring, even hateful. By this time, the book feels positively apocalyptic and dystopian.

 

   Once the too-hasty climax has burnt itself out and the war is over in a few minutes and the last Harkonnen heir defeated in single combat (Paul versus Feyd Rautha), there's not much left other then delegation of duties and positions. This is actually how the book ends. Paul chooses to marry the Emperor's daughter by force, holding up the destruction of the spice economy as a threat over the whole universe, even over the Emperor. By marrying Princess Irulan, he is guaranteed the Imperial throne. But he takes a moment to confess his love to his Fremen woman, Chani, who is now destined to be his concubine, even as his mother was his father's concubine. The book ends with the Lady Jessica exulting this apparently much coveted position beside a male ruler.

 

   And that's it.

 

   When it was all said and done, it seemed like there was so much being laid down and built up and for what? For a war we never really got to see beyond a few paragraphs? For a lack-luster assumption by Paul of some mystical superhuman messiah-figure? Because there was so little emotion and so little meaning (shall I say moral to the story?), so little beyond "this character said this" and "this character said that", I felt a little let down by Dune.

   It certainly was huge and complex, but I felt that the hugeness and the complexity belied a hollow interior. The poetry was not stirring, the dialogue wa robotic and the quips of wisdom were too mystical to have any identification. Beneath the plans and the subterfuge, the espionage, the war, the culture, the economics, the politics and the religion, there were no characters I could love or root for or find interest in. My human unconsciousness may need a logical universe that makes sense, but it also needs a great deal more than just a universe that makes sense. God Himself made a universe that not only makes sense but has meaning in it which makes the sense.

 

   Sorry, Mr. Herbert, rest in peace, but I give Dune:

 

       3.5 out of 10 sandworms!

 

   Dune harkens from an era of early sci-fi when the books were positively over-laden with detail. See Isaac Asimov for more of that. I think Dune suffered from it. It's redeeming quality is the sheer fantasticality-slash-realism of the world which Herbert thought up.

 

I can't recommend Dune, though. It maybe belongs in a museum with other exciting reads: historical documents. Sure it's considered a classic, but one may ask the question: Why?

 

  ~norton