My Thoughts on Dune

Frank Herbert’s Dune is heralded as one of the greatest Sci-Fi novels ever written, its influence in the genre is absolutely undeniable, but, is it actually any good? Let’s find out.

Spoilers ahead so proceed with caution if you haven’t read the book!

Dune is a mammoth of a novel and granted there is a lot that happens but I found it to be quite boring in places. I loved the beginning of the novel with the political intrigue, the foreshadowing and the imminent danger that Leto was caught up in. I also enjoyed Yueh’s internal struggle about his betrayal and his role in the assassination of Leto. The Bene Gesserit were fascinating and the litany against fear is something I will take from this book and use in my life, as I feel like the line ‘fear is the mind killer’ can be a powerful mantra for anyone in a time of anxiety or difficulty (Hello 2020 I’m looking at you).

So what was boring? Well the Villain, I didn’t really want to read about him and delve into his thoughts. The Baron was rather one dimensional and his paedophilic obsession with young boys was vomit-inducing. I also found that the novel was just a bit too long, if some of the desert roaming stuff had been condensed then I would have enjoyed the novel a lot more than I actually did. I also found flicking between the story and the glossary to understand all the invented terms rather irritating as it instantly removes you from the narrative and reminds me of reading ye olde classics for English literature at uni!

Another thing is the question of whether Dune is problematic or not. You have a white saviour narrative, the uncanny references to Iraq (I mean the name of the planet is Arrakis, it’s too similar to be a coincidence) and Arabic culture and history. The spice Melange as a metaphor for the oil crisis, the list goes on. What was Herbert doing, as a White American Man, should he have been allowed to play with a whole culture’s history and use it for a novel? On the flipside, Paul can be seen as a villain, if you read the novel as a treatise on the dangers of colonialism and the violence of white supremacy it becomes something else entirely. Maybe this is what Herbert was trying to craft, a politically woke novel. One can hope. And actually, Quinn’s Ideas (go follow him if you’re a Sci-fi nerd his videos are brilliant!) on Youtube makes the perfect case for this:

The novel can also be read from an ecological angle, the world of Arrakis is a delicate and balanced ecosystem. Water is precious and the sandworms are revered as gods. But, a disturbance in this balance would be catastrophic, just like global warming is going to and has already caused immense harm to Earth. There are a few lines that stand out to me on this subject…

"The historical system of mutual pillage and extortion stops here on Arrakis," his father said. "You cannot go on forever stealing what you need without regard to those who come after.”

I feel like this is exactly the sentiment that needs to be adopted by society before it’s too late!

Back to my overall thoughts on Dune, I’m still harbouring mixed feelings but I like how much there is to analyse, and this review is only hitting the surface. I am still excited for Denis Villeneuve’s cinematic adaptation as I know he will take the best of the novel and make it pop on screen, and I’m pretty confident that Timothée Chalamet has the skill to play Paul as a complex and morally ambiguous character. But is Dune the greatest Sci-Fi novel ever written? It depends who you ask…