5 reasons why Denis Villeneuve's Dune could be the greatest book to film adaptation ever made

September 21, 2021 by Cate Crafter in Film, Books

Usually, book-to-film adaptations get a bad rep. Fans of the source material are prone to finickity nit-picking, and more often than not, the screenplay never quite captures the full essence of the story because, in most cases, there’s just not enough time to cover it all.

Of course, there's the odd good one, and the occasional great one, many of which we can thank the late great Mr Stanley Kubrick for. Yes, even The Shinning that Stephen King notoriously hated.

But 9 times out of 10, the consensus is always that the book is better than the movie. But Denis Villeneuve could quite possibly change that when his cinematic blockbuster adaptation of Dune hits theatres in October.

Here are 5 reasons why Denis Villeneuve’s Dune will blow us away

He's a fan of the book – and I mean a fan

Villeneuve has read Frank Herbert's epic space fantasy novel many times over; he has an undeniable passion for the material. When Denis made Blade Runner 2049, he took the DNA of Ridley Scott's movie and ran with it, he was loyal but also creative with the world, and that's exactly what Dune needs. Someone who loves it and wants it to be Dune but is willing to make it mainstream in a clever way.

He's done a Book to Movie adaptation before, and it was fantastic

The sophisticated and utterly classy 2016 film Arrival is based on a short story by Ted Chiang, and well, it was unarguably one of the best films of the year. This film cemented Villeneuve’s status as a certified Sci-fi wizard as he turned a rather intriguing and very short story into a mind-blowing theatrical experience that only gets better on re-watches.

It's a timeless look for a timeless book

From the looks of the trailer, we are getting a believable Dune. A much more palatable cinematic version, unlike the kitsch campiness of David Lynch's oh so 80's it hurts adaptation from 1984. If anything, there are some major operatic and Shakespearean vibes to the production. The scope of Dune is immense, and the political intrigue is Game of Thrones-level stuff, and that’s exactly what Denis is delivering.

It's woke

Climate crisis, Colonialism, whitewashing, white saviours – all terms that are very much in our verbal lexicon nowadays and this adaptation of Dune tackles them all.

Colonisers ravish Arrakis, for it is the only place where you can acquire the priceless spice Melange. Paul is part of the problem or, at best, a White Saviour, and if you look at Lynch’s 1984 movie it really was rather too white for an intergalactic society hundreds of years in the future.

For a book published in 1965, Dune is still very much contemporary, its issues are our issues, and really this is the perfect time for Dune to be hitting our screens. It’s pure sci-fi epicness with a gut-wrenching punch behind it. Dune is essential viewing.

In Denis Villeneuve, we trust

Going into a Denis Villeneuve movie is a safe thing; he’s a director you can trust. It’s like walking into a Christopher Nolan movie and knowing something about Time will be in the plot or into a Marvel movie and knowing it’s going to be a fun and formulaic blast.

With Villeneuve, you know you’re going to get great visuals, great stories and above all, you know there will be stellar performances. Timothee Chalamet is the perfect casting choice for Paul Atreides; not only is he one of Hollywood’s hottest talents under 30 right now he has the perfect sad boy vibe that just screams an epic coming-of-age story; I feel like he’s going to play Paul as a sort of space Hamlet, to be emperor or not to be emperor that is the question!

June Books

July 01, 2020 by Cate Crafter in Books

This month has basically been a marathon of short fiction, a final trudge through Dune and me discovering a new favourite book and a desire to read classics again. Oh and I read one of the most obscene books ever written!

Dune by Frank Herbert

I wrote a separate review for Dune as I felt like I had a lot to say, and I did. So TL;DR I liked it but I didn’t like it. It’s complicated and it depends on how you read it and from which POV. But if you fancy reading the full review then click here.

At The Sign Of The Cat And Racket (La maison du Chat-qui-pelote) by Honoré de Balzac

This month I decided to start tackling French author Balzac’s The Human Comedy (La Comédie Humaine) a collection of interlinked works which is made up of novels, novellas and essays set in during the Restoration period and July Monarchy. Balzac could be seen as a French Dickens, as both wrote about society and with a focus on realism. This novella follows a few characters who work at a small shop in Paris and the owner marries his daughters off to two very different men. The themes of money, happiness, status, faithfulness, art, and work run throughout. At some point when my French is up to scratch, I’ll probably try reading some of The Human Comedy in French so stay tuned for that (let’s hold me accountable please!)

Also, Balzac’s At The Sign Of The Cat And Racket has forced me to reconsider the genre of realism, and particularly whether I was wrong about Dickens! I have for many years refused to touch a Dickens novel after reading A Christmas Carol at school and finding it veritably boring. I even avoided reading Bleak House for my degree because I thought I knew that I would hate it (ended up reading Walden by Thoreau and despised that instead) but maybe I would have liked it! Maybe I need to reconsider Dickens, and that folks is something I never thought would happen!

Micromegas by Voltaire

More French lit, I think I often coincide my cinematic choices with my book choices as recently I started watching French films again and suddenly all I want to read is classic French Literature. It’s a bit strange but I’ll go with it (I’ll have to because I have ordered so many French Lit second-hand books recently). I read Candide for Uni last year and really enjoyed Voltaire’s wit and seeing that I was miles behind on my 75 books in a year challenge I thought to myself “why not read this tiny little book by a French author that you’ve read before”. So I did. Micromegas is a rather strange little thing, it is essentially Sci-Fi before Sci-Fi was a thing.

The short story follows a giant from a planet called Sirius as he journeys through the solar system, he meets another giant (though much smaller than Micromegas) on Saturn and they soon find themselves on Earth. For these giants, Human life is so small (literally) and they find our behaviour (waging wars) perplexing due to how insignificant we seem, as in comparison, humans are tiny, and live such short lives and have a much inferior intellect to them. Voltaire’s brand of satire is fantastic and I can’t wait to read more of his works.

Record of a Night Too Brief (蛇を踏む) by Hiromi Kawakami

I like abstract stories, I like bizarre and challenging stories. But I did not like any of the short stories in this volume. I also have in the past read Kawakami and enjoyed her prose, but this collection of three stories just didn’t do anything for me. I found them too strange and I was unable to connect with them on any level. All I can say is nevermind, you win some and you lose some. Will I continue to check out Kawakami’s work? Sure, I think she’s an interesting and talented writer, it’s just that these stories didn’t touch me.

A Spy in the House of Love by Anaïs Nin

I have found a new author to consume wholeheartedly. Her prose is deliciously poetic, and the way she writes Sabine is so vivid and relatable but alarming and deplorable at the same time. I loved this novel and I feel like I need to get a physical copy (I read it on Libby) to underline all the moments of poeticism and to read it over and over again.

Femme Fatale by Guy de Maupassant

This Penguin Little Black Classics book contains four short stories set in 19th Century France was nothing particularly fantastic, just ok in my opinion. But for 80p you can’t really go wrong and I might read Maupassant’s most famous work Bel-Ami as a result.

Story of the Eye (Histoire de l'œil) by Georges Bataille

This is a book that will leave an impression on you. It’s interesting to analyse from a psychological angle but my goodness it is utterly depraved and probably the most f***ked up book I have ever read. All I’m prepared to say is that I can probably never look at eyes and eggs the same way again.

My Thoughts on Dune

June 18, 2020 by Cate Crafter in Books

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…

Space Bunnies Book Club - April & May - Dune

April 16, 2020 by Cate Crafter in Books

Me and my sister Charlotte have decided to launch a new book club. It’s called Space Bunnies and will be a Science Fiction and Fantasy orientated Book Club

Our first book club read will be Dune by Frank Herbert. I chose Dune this month because it’s been on my bookshelf for years and all those Dune images for Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation have finally made me grab it off the shelf!!!! Dune was also part of my Quarantine Reading List.