FIRST OFF SPOILERS IF YOU HAVENT READ THE FIRST TWO BOOKS AND PART OF BOOK THREE
I got the
Dune book series for Christmas and have been making my way through it for the first time. Wow. All the hype, all the attention, it is all worth it. This is indeed a masterpiece. The writing is fluid and descriptive, poetic, otherworldly, yet memorable. The worldbuilding is just brilliant, he is constantly introducing new things and elegantly explaining their place in the world. The deft with which he manages to depict very subtle political intrigue is also astonishing. These are the parts of the book that are probably most "unfilmable" because they are essentially rooms full of people talking about space politics. George Lucas tried this with the prequels and failed, it doesn't make for reverting movie viewing. But with a book you can go into the mind of each character's head, reveal their training, the lineage and hidden meaning of subtle gestures, the way a character will react to another's speech and how it reveals knowledge to them. Herbert is a madman for pulling this off. Honestly, it sounds far more complicated than it is in the moment reading it. It was all very easy to follow, granted I want to point out I have already seen the David Lynch version of
Dune. After reading the first book I think he did an admirable job and it is very close story-wise.
It is cool that he pulled a sort of "Fallen Hero" subversion in the second book, taking the hero Paul and having a sort of Monkey Paw situation out of the success of the whole "Galactic Jihad" thing. It's a realistic look at what would happen in such an event, an engineered messiah inherits the most coveted resource in the universe, and in pursuing a spiritual quest, he tames the beasts that rule the planet, effectively conquering both hearts and minds. How do you maintain a theocratic totalitarian space empire based out of one planet? How far do you let your subjects carry their religious ferver, while being pulled in various directions by the forces of fate, all while having twin babies? His revolution was glorious but even he was afraid of it's glorious and terrible success. To watch it all implode on him, and characters trying to hold a civilization together after the fall of the big bad guys from the first book
https://freebooksummary.com/category/why-we-cant-wait, is so cool.
Right now I am in book three and just enjoying watching this vast space opera play out across the generations. I appreciate how the sins of the father are passed down. The sins of the grandfather, even! Reading about Paul's children, twins who possess all the memories of their ancestors, it was funny to come across Alia confronting her evil grandfather the Baron. She knows his evil lives in her, and he even talks to her, wanting to work with her. In a large way it actually felt like the Rey-Palpatine connection in the last Star Wars movie. Wonder if JJ was ever into
Dune? There are so many Star Wars things baked into
Dune, from the desert planet to the chosen one to the mystical powers to the "I am your father!" even. But I don't blame George or anyone influenced by this masterpiece, it's quite an inspiring set of works.
