I mean I feel like it could be strongly argued that the idea that you could possibly manipulate the agency and free will out of an entire culture is very problematic in its own right.
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So I read Dune....and it's kinda bad?
- Thread starter Veelk
- Start date
They're foreign leader has literal super powers that allow him to control the bodies and minds of those he comes in contact just by talking in a certain manner. The Fremen were never a match for Paul as impressive as they might have been on Dune. The other scenarios don't really mesh with the fact that not only the Fremen but everyone, including Paul's own family have been a part of a plan to mold humanity to serve a god like being through millennia of propaganda, eugenics and subtle power moves by the BG. The Fremen like many of the groups in the story aren't important when it comes to the fruition of the Kwisatz Haderach "plan". They're puppets with the strings waiting to be pulled because they've all been primed for these things and Paul is able to take advantage them even further thanks to his prescient ability. That's why I call it a nightmare because humanity at large is basically primed for the coming of their God Emperor and don't even fucking realize it, even the fucking god king himself doesn't realize it.
It is extremely problematic and a very bad thing. That is part of the point.
The Bene Geserit are the not the good guys. Ultimately, neither is Paul.
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I'll assert again that I have literally zero first hand knowledge of Dune, but again the issue isn't whether a rebellion could succeed, but whether it would even be conceived of in the first place. I also think that if your arguement is that the world and and inhabitants of a fantasy/sci-fi story work and think so differently from people in real life that they lose pretty much all power as an allegory, since allegories only work when they're grounded in reality
My read on the book is that Leto was a good person, and the cloestto a traditional "good guy" protagonist. Baron Harkonnen via killing him in his shortsighted greed unwittingly unleashes the Bene Gessrit's terrible God Emperor Paul on the world. I don't think you're meant to read the book and be like dang, paul u cool and doing cool things. my mood was generally like man what is this kid doing
I agree with the sentiment that the women are written pretty terribly. Jessica is pretty egregious. You're like this supernatural psychic manipulator woman and now you're just peacing out because your son is charge? girl what?
I agree with the sentiment that the women are written pretty terribly. Jessica is pretty egregious. You're like this supernatural psychic manipulator woman and now you're just peacing out because your son is charge? girl what?
You should probably read dune before trying to dissect it.
I think you misunderstand. My point wasn't that trying to manipulate an entire culture was bad, my point was the suggestion that such a deed could ever be accomplished in the first place by any means is problematic if your entire allegory is built on such an assertion. Because in reality there have been efforts to stamp out free thought or agency in a number of groups and it never works because even oppressed people have agency in reality. So a story built around the suggestion that enough oppression could rob people of free thought becomes inherently problematic because it suggests that there are people or groups who started out with insufficient agency for such a possibility to be realized
This is fair and my purpose here is less to dissect it myself and more to try and explain what Veelk's arguement seems to be based around because it feels like people are too focused on whether it's suggesting that things like colonialism are good or not when Veelk's issue seems to be more based around the idea that these things are inevitable, not the actual outcome
It is not oppression, not in the way you are thinking.
It is very effectively weaponized propaganda and religion. And this is VERY salient to the real world.
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The story is so excessively bloated with useless text and narratively has so much down-time between events that I find the idea that Dune was too busy to have a character or two voice this to be laughable. That's just a bad argument. Dune has little else but time to fill.
And like I said, I just need more of an argument than "But they are saying it's bad too"
If a film goes out of it's way to sexually objectify it's female characters, have the camera leer at their bodies and otherwise fulfill all the checkmarks of a film that's just out to throw the male gaze at women...but if it then has some guy say "did you know that male gaze is bad actually" does that just make it a feminist film? Is really a critique of the male gaze then? Most people would say no. Not if it does what it's supposedly criticizing so blatantly.
If the Fremen have more defiance and agency in the later books, that's cool, but there just wasn't enough of a self identity to the Fremen in Dune itself.
I mean again, I don't think this completely changes things when people have been born into cults and escaped in the real world. The issue Veelk is arguing is that the idea that this culture could be controlled so completely and robbed of so much agency in the first place is problematic. How you set up your story and world isn't a free pass because the foundations of a story also reveal inherent attitudes in the author in the first place
Well, Fremen culture is their own making just influence by the Bene Gesserit. As I read it, the Bene Gesserit plants seeds on worlds which these cultures then develop on their own. And, those with Bene Gesserit training can recognize these seeds and exploit it to their advantage. So, it's not like their entire culture was planned out only subtly influence by outside actors. I also don't think anyone in Dune is "just their own culture." It's a semi-religious feudal society. The Bene Gesserit influence the nobles, including the Emperor, as much as they influence everyone else.
Everyone is part of someone else's game. No one is free.
Great OP. Always respect when a lot of work is put into these.
But that's minor. My biggest issues with the book was Paul's sudden ascent to demigodhood and his mother becoming this:
She's treated early on as having a finger around everything and being in relative control to just falling apart the second Paul gets any sort of power. If I remember correctly she even fights losing control when the attack on the Atreides happens but later on just loses that fire completely. :x
I agree with all of what you said, especially the quoted bits here. It may be the nature of the book to be heartless in its' look at people since Arrakis is always described is tearing people down and making it so you only do what you can to survive and no more. So in that sense I get why everything is framed as a utility but like you mentioned it doesn't explain why his father falls into the same trappings.
But that's minor. My biggest issues with the book was Paul's sudden ascent to demigodhood and his mother becoming this:
She's treated early on as having a finger around everything and being in relative control to just falling apart the second Paul gets any sort of power. If I remember correctly she even fights losing control when the attack on the Atreides happens but later on just loses that fire completely. :x
Great read Veelk. I first read Dune when I was 15, and had a very similar reaction. I think the setting is, for lack of a better word, iconic, and if you're interested in the history of science fiction, it's worth a read. But even at that age I wanted something different out of my science fiction. (Blame Le Guin introducing me to the genre.)
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. 15 yo me did not even blink at that. At 30, I shook my head in disappointment.
I may be remembering wrong but doesn't Paul realize what he is doing and the path he is setting the Fremen on but just sort of shrugs and keeps going anyway? I distinctly remember him having a space drug induced vision about their future galactic war.
I'll be honest that - having read the whole series- I wish the later books had similarly treated me like a moron in the manner of explaining verbal jousts such as you've quoted. Conversations become stranger and stranger as the series progresses into nigh impenetrability, in my opinion. It works for God Emperor because, well that's the point. But even books 5 and 6 maintain this. It's like he fell in love with Leto's ramblings in Children and maintained that for the rest of the series.
Right at the very end of the book after he wins his fight. He gives in to it as inevitable instead of fighting it. I don't even think that particular part was drug-induced, more like a clarifying moment of doom.
One of the most important takeaways from this, and the 2 following books: Paul is weak and a coward.
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Well I wasn't really speaking to allegory but the state of the universe. Its not even just propaganda, religion and the like. A galaxy wide eugenics program going on for millennia by the time Dune starts has effectively bred certain traits into humanity at large which people like Paul and to a much greater extent Paul can manipulate. Its like if you were genetically predisposed to doing whatever your God King said but without being conscious of it, it just comes naturally.
I mean I think the issue here is that you can't really tell any sort of meaningful allegory if your entire story hinges on a scenario with no baring on real life. It's the same reason why trying to use a dnd setting where some creatures are just innately good or evil for a racial allegory is problematic, because allegories only work if they have meaningful things to say about real situations.
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I agree with the main thrust of what your saying, but you might be using the wrong word here. Allegory is when the author intentionally is making a real world connection (which dune was, by Frank Herbert's own admissions, with regards to the oil of the middle east), and you could definitively say that something is not allegorical if the author says they didn't intend it. But applicability is free game. Applicability is just where the fiction of a work has strong associations with some real life aspect and it doesn't really matter whether the author intended it or not, and it doesn't have to be as specific as Herbert was with Dune being allegory for the middle east.
To use an example, Tolkien said he didn't make LotR's an allegory for World War 2 or his experiences in it. But it's almost undeniable that his text in LotR would have some applicable features in relation to war in general that are informed by his experience of WW2.
Fair enough. But yeah when the narrative themes and thrust of a story can only work because the setting is so divorces from anything that could ever happen in reality, that's when things become an issue
Speaking of whom, if anyone is looking for some better Sci-Fi, the relatively recent works of Ann Leckie reminds me of Le Guin.
Particularly the Imperial Radch series, but her fantasy book The Raven Tower is okay.
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I'll pitch in and recommend the Interdepency trilogy by John Scalzi that I mentioned in the OP. It's dune inspired and sharp as all fuck in many meanings of the word.
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I mentioned this in the OP somewhat, but I do like books about aliens that actually FEEL like they're alien. There's something missing if there isn't some aspect of the "other" in there.
But yes, you do need some basis of relatability or else it's just....things happening. Characters having problems that no human being reading the book could have will almost certainly never find an audience. And it's foolish to suggest that readers will not take lessons learned in the book and apply it to their real lives to some extent, so yeah, I agree with you. You can't say Dune isn't sending a message about real life people just because it's fantasy people are using fantasy means of oppression.
I was specifically referring to his prose, though you are not wrong about the content.
I read Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword, but I've forgotten most of what happened. I really need to reread them now that the series is done. It's becoming hard to keep remember characters and plots between book releases. I have to limit myself to only a few ongoing series... everything else has to be read in one go. :(
Perhaps for you but one of the big reasons I love scifi is that many stories can divorce themselves from many aspects of what we know as reality. That's part of the fun of scifi is being able to explore things that we can't actually interact with or experience in our regular lives. It does need some connective tissue to what we know unless you're going for the truly bizarre like writing from a totally alien perspective but that's pretty damned difficult to do and do well.
I mean I'm fine with the concept of aliens who truly feel "alien" and I'd argue that even if limited that the concept does have some form of applicability when we consider that there may be a possibility of us someday meeting intelligent life from the stars and that said life would probably be very different in many very fundemental ways that even the most disparate of human cultures aren't, and so thinking about how we'd interact with them and whether we could coexist does have inherent value. Alien's who feel to alien are a problem if the goal is to use them as stand ins for other human cultures, but that doesn't need to be the case
Fortunately, I came late to the series, so I read the entire thing over the course of 4 days; I was mostly on autopilot at work that week.
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The only reason I'm a Sanderson fan today is because I picked up his book after I permanently injured my eyes trying to read Wheel of Time books. Sanderson is specifically inspired by WoT, but he does it better, so I only managed to get through it because I used it as a chaser for something much, much harsher. Before that, I tried to read his Way of King's book and couldn't get through it because of the prose.
If you grit your teeth and get past the prose, you will find a good writer there. His plotting is arguably some of the best in the business and his characters are genuinely complex, developed, and fun. The prose is just the price of admission.
I mean I love fantasy and scifi for similar reasons. The issue isn't that things exist in them that aren't real. Like most sci-fi space stuff ends up using different planets as analogous to different countries in the real world (hence why very few scifi seem to have planets with a bunch of different cultures and environments and instead we tend to get the ice planet and the desert planet and the forest planet etc). Using fantastical elements to explore different philosophies is fine, or to use them as a metaphor to real world circumstances. The issue is if the main thrust of what your trying to say in your story is so divorced from anything in reality that it becomes meaningless. Having stories where people can be resurrected isn't an issue even though people coming back from the dead isn't a real thing. That said, it becomes a problem if the story you're trying to tell requires death to have meaning but people can and do come back from it constantly because the setting becomes to divorced from reality in regards to the point you're trying to make
Oh please god dont tell me this.
I just blitzed through Hyperion and then Fall of Hyperion faster than I have EVER read two novels, and overall I liked Hyperion but the second book was majorly disappointing to me in a lot of ways considering how hyped it was.
Dune was next in line but I decided to wait because I want to watch the movie first so the book wont ruin it..... If Dune is overrated too then what the fuck man.... Cmoonnnnnnnnnnnnn. Please god no....
What other good sci fi books can I check out please... pleeeeeease
I just blitzed through Hyperion and then Fall of Hyperion faster than I have EVER read two novels, and overall I liked Hyperion but the second book was majorly disappointing to me in a lot of ways considering how hyped it was.
Dune was next in line but I decided to wait because I want to watch the movie first so the book wont ruin it..... If Dune is overrated too then what the fuck man.... Cmoonnnnnnnnnnnnn. Please god no....
What other good sci fi books can I check out please... pleeeeeease
I have actually read everything he has written until Oathbringer I think.
If I am going to read that much text, I need more resistance, and I never really got that from him. And I would actually argue against the complexity of his characters. One of the biggest issues I have with him is how straightforward his characterization is.
Also not a huge fan of his world-building.
His plotting is excellent though. Probably why I read so much of his stuff before I realized that he did not have enough ambition when it came to improving his prose and character work.
Go ahead and just read it. It is not without value.
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I'm always confused by responses like this. It doesn't matter what book we're talking about, there's always going to be someone who hates it, whether it's LotR, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, etc. Everything popular has it's detractors, and pretty much all unpopular stuff too. Nothing's universally loved.
The question is never whether there are people who think something is overrated, because there always is. It's about whether they put up a good argument for thinking so and if it's an argument you can ascribe to.
Ultimately, is almost always "You gotta read them yourself to find out how you feel about them."
I understand that, but usually theres at least a few near universal darlings.... there has to be especially in such a mature medium. You can always find these floating near the top of most peoples recommendations. Im not asking for nor expecting perfect. Afterall the first Hyperion book IMO deserves its praise; it cliffhanger'ed, but what was there was immaculate. So I understand it. But Im shaken coming off of return.
I really just want to dive into another book and anticipate it paying off.
Personally its one of my favorite scifi books. I even like the prose and writing which Veelk does decidedly not.
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It's also a 50+ year book. There are some people who think that any truly good story stands the test of time forever, and perhaps some do, but I think pretty much all books age eventually. And that's a good thing, it means understanding in our society is moving forward. So whenever I read older books like Dune, I try to be somewhat understanding of the fact that men (and frankly, women too, because internalized misogyny is also a thing) will probably write women badly to some extent or another.
So I can't really agree with you on the aspect of universal darlings, especially older novels, which if society is doing well, means that we SHOULD dislike what came before to some extnet. But like I said, don't let the fact that I don't like it mean you can't. You do you.
Yeah, I remember talking to you about that then. I think you must have said somethign to the effect of hating future books tho, because I am pretty sure I read atleast the first book super early on and had to re-read the first book to move onto the second one. I never read past halfway through book 4. Fuck WoT.
Actually looking forward to the TV adapatation tho. The best thing about adapting older books is that you can take all the bad shit out of it while keeping the good stuff. I'm basically hoping that's the case for the upcoming Dune movie.
Yeah, but I think I also mentioned that my fondness for the early stuff was because I was pretty young when I read them. I am 100% certain I would not get past the first book with my current sensibilities.
And yeah, I feel the same way about the adaptation. I see people on the internet wanting it to stay as faithful as possible, and here I am wanting most of it to burn to the ground.
If you thought Fall of Hyperion was disappointing, you should go on to read the Endymion duology. Now that is some bullshit.
Hyperion was meant to have a cliffhanger? I thought it was just a "HAHAH THEY'RE ALL FUCKED" ending considering the Shrike
I've got at least one example where the Fremen exhibit agency.
Their bribing of the Spacing Guild to prevent any of the great houses using weather satellites. This is something Stilgar says they've been doing for generations, and is tied into their desire to 'green' the planet.
Generally tho, I can't respond to the OP because its been so long since I'd only read Dune and none of the sequels I can't easily disassociate what comes next from my first reading.
Their bribing of the Spacing Guild to prevent any of the great houses using weather satellites. This is something Stilgar says they've been doing for generations, and is tied into their desire to 'green' the planet.
Generally tho, I can't respond to the OP because its been so long since I'd only read Dune and none of the sequels I can't easily disassociate what comes next from my first reading.
Well I mean,
the first book the way it built everything up, then the pilgrims get to the time tombs and sing a song and the book ends before we get any resolution.
But I don't want to drag this offtopic. Its good to hear at least that this is a little mixed. I still want to watch the upcoming Dune movie first before reading the books though.
It seems to me that Dan Simmons's only goal originally was to write a masterful scifi horror novel with the structure of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. And he knocked it out of the park. But then, like every sci-fi writer, he thought to himself, "what if I tie up every loose end, explain everything that didn't need explaining, and throw away the structure that was so effective the first time around."
I don't even gate Fall of Hyperion all that much. There's some good stuff in there. But it couldn't help but be disappointing.
Uh, and back on topic I guess, Dune is great. It seems hypocritical for Tolkien to hate on it, because him and Herbert have more in common then he'd like to admit. The mannered writing, the natural world building, and the way that characters are more archetypes than people.
I mean, look, it's no Philip K Dick. But it's a really well executed science fiction story, that draws on a wider range of references than most other writes did at the time.
Huh, interesting. I'm planning to read Dune for the very first time once I finish up American Gods.
Wonder if I'll like it... some of those things sound pretty bad. I've been wanting to read it for ages though, so I'm still gonna try and go ahead. I also really wanna read it before seeing Villeneuve's adaptation.
Wonder if I'll like it... some of those things sound pretty bad. I've been wanting to read it for ages though, so I'm still gonna try and go ahead. I also really wanna read it before seeing Villeneuve's adaptation.
Dune kicks ass, props to the OP for just saying that they didn't like the prose and couldn't relate to the vibe rather than coming up with some nonsense criticisms.
Although to nitpick:
Although to nitpick:
It is an "infobox," it's clearly something like an encyclopedia subject line he's repeating. The full line conveys that Paul is retracing knowledge he's been taught but doesn't yet have a meaningful understanding of. Trimming the repetition to just "Dune" loses information content about how Paul thinks.