Dune by Frank Herbert, 1965, The Berkeley Publishing Group, Special markets Hardcover September 2005, ISBN 0-441-01405-4

How does one go about writing a review of Dune? It’s a massive job. I shall need three days to say most of what’s in my head. Imagine, therefore, how much more difficult it was to write the book in the first place. The achievement of Frank Herbert is immense. To create the planet Arrakis, with all its culture based on physical characteristics, and the worlds beyond Arrakis is a staggering work, easily rivaling the achievement of J.R.R. Tolkien.

I began reading Dune on June 15 this year, and finished July 19. As I said in previous posts (here and here), I found the beginning very hard reading. Herbert did not spoon-feed his readers. We have to figure it out from the barest of clues. On the first page I was confronted with the term Kwisatz Haderach, planets Caladan and Arrakis, the Atriedes family, and the curious term “suspensor lamp”. Strange words, strange concepts, hard going. I didn’t realize I had a “Terminology of the Imperium” section in the back. I assumed I had to figure these out from context or later illumination.

The second page presented the gom jabbar, Bene Gesserit, CHOAM, Landsraad, etc. The first five pages, even the first fifty pages, threw up one difficulty toward full understanding after another. I like to understand what I read. If I can’t figure out something from the context or internal explanation, I consult a dictionary, or even on occasion an encyclopedia. But where to go to understand Bene Gesserit? Nothing to do but read on and hope to figure it all out from accumulated context. I did, eventually, stumble on the glossary, and made frequent flips there. It wasn’t the most helpful, but consistent with Herbert’s aversion to spoon-feeding. I read fairly slowly, trying to maximize my understanding. Possibly the need to understand caused me not to focus on some plot elements, or the depth of character development.

Once I was past the first fifty pages, the extent of new terms diminished. Some others started to become familiar. I consulted the glossary less, and enjoyed the book more. The mind fog over Arrakis started to clear (and in so doing, I hope, provided something for the dew harvesters to collect), and the plot stood front and center. About the time Jessica and Paul had to escape from their Harkonnen captors (or were they Sardukuar?) was when I began to see the big picture.

On the next two days–I think; it could take longer–I’m going to cover what I liked and didn’t like about Dune. Today I’ll simply mention that I like the fact the book had no swearing, no overt sex scenes, and little violence. Oh, there were wars, battles, and knife fights, but the covering of this was superbly done by Herbert, such that you almost didn’t know it was a violent scene. The violence was not gratuitous, and the book did not rise or fall on the violence. This, I feel, is a mark of good writing.

So I conclude today by saying put me in the camp of fans of Dune. Some day I will re-read this, and I don’t re-read many books. Thanks to my son for this gift, which has enriched me. More later.

Yesterday I reached, and today I passed, the halfway point in Dune, Frank Herbert’s 1965 science fiction novel. My son gave this to me for Christmas (or birthday; they’re pretty close together), and about three weeks ago it finally came to the top of the pile. My son gave it a good endorsement, saying it helped to define, or maybe it was change, the science fiction genre. I’m not much of a science fiction or fantasy person, but with that endorsement, and trying to please him, when it came to the top and it was time to read fiction, I plunged.

The first fifty pages were very hard reading. So many terms to learn, so many flips to the glossary. So much going back to re-read paragraphs that didn’t seem to make sense. Actually, this went on for closer to a hundred pages (my version is 540 pages, including appendixes). I found myself unable to read more than five to ten pages a day.

After a while, though, I fell into a rhythm, and began to find the work enjoyable. Some terms started to become familiar; others could be deciphered from context. The main plot line became clear, and the characters became real. The writing is stellar, and this book has one thing I really like in a book: omniscient narrator point of view. In all my writing instruction sources, they say omniscient is out of favor, and new writers should avoid it. As a reader, however, I prefer it, so why wouldn’t I write in it? Tonight I finished a chapter where Paul and his mother are the only characters in the scene. In one paragraph we are in Paul’s head; in the next one in Jessica’s. And I say, “Hallelujah!” What an exciting way to write. The caution against head hopping is, IMHO, way over stated.

Back to Dune, I can’t imagine how much time it took Herbert to create this. It seems more fantasy to me than science fiction. Possibly these two genres frequently merge when the science fiction is so far out there to make Earth invisible. His creation of the desert situations–the sand worms and the Fremen and stillsuits and the whole concept about water conservation is outstanding. The empire, with the tripartite arrangement between the royal house and the guild and the leading families, which has barely come out, is an interesting foundation of the plot. Back story is worked in expertly by Herbert.

I’m on a roll now, reading twenty pages a day or a few more. I’m anxious to learn how Paul and Jessica return to civilization; how Thufir Hawat learns who the real traitor is; what the emperor’s gambit is; etc. A few things I question, but imagine they will be explained later. For example, the last chapter I read this evening told of the death of Kynes, the Fremen planetologist who served as the judge of the change. Given that he died, and will have no more part in the story (unless he really didn’t die; we don’t have a corpus delecti yet, and I always maintain until you have the corpus delecti you don’t have a death), why did Herbert spend so much time on the death? Was it just to work in some of Arrakis’ physical characteristics, which Paul will pick up on later in this (or a subsequent) volume? The weeks ahead will tell.