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.
–Frank Herbert, Dune
In a galaxy strained by warring political alliances, Paul Atreides moves to the desert world of Arrakis, the only planet where the strange drug melange can be harvested. His father, the Duke Leto, takes up stewardship of the planet to manage the melange trade. But the move is a trap.
Soon after their arrival, agents of the Empire and the evil House Harkonnen murder the Duke. Paul and his mother flee into the desert where they face the terror of the sands—great worms the size of hills that swallow their hapless prey. While in this perilous wilderness, Paul encounters the Fremen, a nomadic people who fight against the imperial forces that have invaded their planet.
Paul vows to join the Fremen in their fight, and he learns that fate has cast him into the desert for a reason. For he is the destined leader who will bring the Fremen victory over the oppressive House Harkonen.
Frank Herbert’s Dune is considered a sci-fi masterpiece. But I’m going to have to join its critics in saying it’s overrated. All it did for me is make me really thirsty.
There’s a pervading sense of dryness to the story as the rarity of water is emphasized over and over again. (The desert people even wear special stillsuits that catch all the moisture they expel—sweat, urine, etc.—and recycles it back into the body.) Points to Herbert for making a Dixie cup of water seem more valuable than a bag of gold.
And who could forget the terrifying sandworms?
But a story is more than its setting. You have to make me love your characters. And that didn’t happen for me in Dune. The only strong emotion I felt was hatred for Baron Vladmir Harkonnen. The guy is just plain evil—the typical villain everybody loves to hate.
As far as the heroes go, however, there’s nothing really memorable about them and I didn’t care whether they lived or died. The story went in a dozen different directions so as to present the political climate of the galaxy Herbert had built. But not enough was put into revealing who the characters were. And for that reason, the story fails me.
Some people may sing praises for Dune. But I won’t.
I realize I’m entering dangerous waters by not praising the book. The story is beloved by many, and passions run strong when Dune is brought up. But I’m of the opinion people can like and dislike different stories and still have a civil, respectful conversation.
That said, if you’ve read Dune, I’d love to hear your opinion. Please reply in the comments below.
I did enjoy Dune, an I found many of its characters interesting. I still remember Duncan Idaho’s warning never to sit with one’s back to the door whenever I move to a new work space. When I initially read Dune, more than 25 years ago, I felt compelled to read the whole series—actually everything I could find by Frank Herbert, and I did so. However, for me, none of the sequels matched the intensity of the original Dune story, and I was rather disappointed later in the series. Still, I was quite eager to see the 1984 movie version, but it was a catastrophe—I had to explain everything that was happening to my brother who watched the movie with me, but had not read the series. It is a big story—perhaps too big for one movie, so I am not as excited about the movie remake as I was in 1984. Yet, i have some hope as it will not be difficult to do better.
I would consider it a flawed masterpiece, and perhaps turgid in places, but I found some of the scenes arresting and much of the dialogue quite powerful. Your criticism of about the characters is perhaps valid (something I would say is also true for writers like Ursula le Guin, and, outside of science fiction, Milan Kundera) because in the case of Herbert, Kundera, and le Guin, there is something else going on. In the case of le Guin and Kundera, I feel that the setting (ideological and philosophical as well as geographical) IS the character, and is the focus that defines the characters and makes them interesting. With Herbert I also think that the setting of Dune, and the universe beyond it, is so richly imagined that, with some exceptions, the weaker emphasis on characterisation is something that didn’t really bother me.
If I were to pursue those exceptions, I might complain that, when one considers the Messianic aspect of Dune, your point about characterisation gets more valid, and if one agrees that Le Guin can sometimes create less-than-memorable characters, it is here that Le Guin gets away with it more than Herbert does. Outside of A Wizard of Earthsea, Le Guin doesn’t deal much with prophecy and lineage; her characters in the Hainish cycle exist as people who are very conscious that their lives are very small in comparison to the Ekumen they are part of. They know that as ambassadors to the worlds they try to visit, they must travel alone, that the planet may well not accept them and even kill them. The efforts for which they have prepared themselves over years and which have seen them separated from their families by many lifetimes of hypersleep may well fail. Ultimately, if characters are forgettable in le Guin’s universe, it kind of fits. The Ekumen is a character of its, own, and with its potential for co operation, peace and mutual understanding, it is bigger than any one person.
In Dune, if a character who is destined to be a Messiah of sorts doesn’t make an impression; doesn’t encounter memorable challenges or passes them too easily (I’m thinking of the sandworms and the hand in the box test), his ignominy will be so much the more. The pressure on anybody to be “the One” must be a horrible kind of pressure and I don’t really blame Paul Atreides for being perhaps a little unconvincing in the circumstances. He, and the rest of us, are probably better off working with the Ekumen. (I’m British, by the way, and am very conscious that I’m writing this a few days after Brexit.)
Messianic literature, and more broadly, the hero’s journey, is a lens for storytelling that I find more problematic with each passing year, probably because I believe our world needs more examples of how collective efforts can bring about the kind of changes we need to see. As long as we keep celebrating individual effort, we remain a heavily tokenistic society and issues such as global poverty and climate change will never be addressed in the way that would make real changes. Obviously the hero’s journey is too intrinsically connected with stories for it to go away. But when the hero becomes a Messiah, there is a danger that they will never be able to live up to the author’s promises, and that a reader like me might find it all a bit distasteful!
Like Grace, I first read Frank Herbert’s Dune series 25 years ago as a young teen, and again in University and both times, found Dune (the first book) to be a masterpiece for its mind-blowing scale. In my humble opinion, few authors have been able to plan and “create” such a world with a strong compelling storyline and characters and with an interstellar backdrop, geography, religion, politics, etc. woven so intrinsically into its fabric. I do not know how I would feel if I read the series again, but I won’t forget how I felt when I first encountered Dune. I don’t need sci-fi to be polished, I love it for how it stretches the boundaries of thought.
I have never read the Dune series and likely never will. I did watch the first original movie but it was just a little to strange and unusual so I didn’t care to read any of the books. So this is it for any opinions I might have.
I sometimes refer to myself as a second-generation nerd. My parents (former hippies, turned Christian) adore all things fantasy and science fiction, and I grew up having a father who said things like “This is your Gom Jabbar.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but that wasn’t new. They had copies of Dune around the house, but I wasn’t allowed to read it as a child. (And by golly, I should have asked them why they loved a book they didn’t consider appropriate for children.)
So though I saw the movie when I was a sprout, I didn’t read it until I was an adult.
There were a lot of things to dislike about it, for me. Religion without faith. Manipulation, incest, betrayal, poorly constructed war campaigns. It’s quotable, I’ll give you that. I came to see it as a huge painting–rich in color, telling a big story with a lot of small details. But there’s nothing behind the flecks of paint. The characters fulfill the author’s function before they pursue their own lives. And, most of all, my tender believer’s heart disliked the resolution at the end. How Jessica “encouraged” Chani.
But I think a big part of what changed how I see the story is how grounded I am in Christ. When I constantly ask “where does my Lord fit in this” and find He does not, it is much easier to divorce myself from the religious fanatics in the story. I think the part of the story I liked most, and found the most believable, was the actual point of his story. The ecology and the terraforming. Everything else was the nerd equivalent of glitter bombs.
I see the truth of it.
(See what I did there?)
Sorry, I only saw the movie. It was a bit campy and corny in places but also cool. There were lots of cool little things going on but not enough big things to impress me. Maybe the book is different. I’m a bit wimpy about sci-fi unless it involves a bit more romance than Dune had. My guess is that the book version is hard to pull off. Casting could have been done a little better. I still love the story