Book Review: Dune
Frank Herbert’s classic science-fiction epic: a thoroughly immersive tale.
As a sci-fi fan, you’d probably expect that I had already read Frank Herbert’s Dune a long time ago. Sadly that’s not the case. It’s yet another of those books I strangely missed. Knowing this, and knowing that Denis Villeneuve’s movie adaptation was on the horizon, it was one of the first books I had in my sights when I decided to get back into reading. It’s taken me a while to get to, as the version I wanted to buy - the 50th Anniversary Edition featuring a nice minimalist cover of the sands of Arrakis through a worm-shaped aperture - went out of stock almost immediately upon the new movie’s announcement. But I finally managed to pick it up and have a read.
Summary
“He who controls the spice, controls the universe!” as the famous quote from David Lynch’s 1984 movie adaptation goes. In fact, that quote is not in the book at all (except in the 50th Anniversary Edition’s blurb - which I have a number of issues with and will mention further down), but it is a very helpful summation of the book’s plot all the same.
Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the “spice”, Melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, Melange is a prize worth killing for... When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.
Review
When a franchise is several decades old and very highly regarded, sometimes spoilers are unavoidable. Sometimes these big plot points just seep into the public consciousness and become memes in themselves, where people know all about the franchise without ever having watched, read or played any of it. You can’t walk for tripping over Darth Vader’s identity, for instance.
Not so with Dune.
I have in the recesses of my mind the vague feeling that I watched Lynch’s Dune adaptation as a child, or at least part of it. I knew about the desert planet, I knew about the sand-worms, the spice, and even the adaptation’s controversial depiction of the navigators. But for all of that, I went into reading the novel with absolutely no idea what to expect; I knew nothing of the plot, the story or the characters.
And I really rather enjoyed it.
Despite a slow start, there was plenty in the book right off the bat to keep me interested. Dune has deep and complex worldbuilding, but avoids the pitfalls of other books by having almost nothing in the way of info-dumping. The complexities of the universe, quite masterfully, arise as and when they are relevant. There’s no expositional prologue, and the reader is largely left to fend for themselves when it comes to understanding what is happening, where Herbert has instead opted for meaning to be inferred through context (there is a glossary at the back, which was extremely helpful). In addition to this, the novel has a heavy focus on political scheming - especially between the rival Great Houses that feature prominently, and to go along with this, there’s an almost excessive obsession with people-watching, where some characters can (as part of their training) pinpoint a person’s true intentions just by watching their body language and listening for slight variations in the tone of their voice. Such close observation of other people made me feel rather uncomfortable, though that is more to do with my personality rather than a fault of the book. I can imagine many people I know would instead relish in it.
The novel is written in a third-person omniscient style, so you end up having a lot of head-hopping, where you can be inside one character’s thoughts for one moment and then inside another’s without warning. It’s an older technique that was more prominent in the nineteenth century, and had fallen out of favour even by the time Herbert wrote Dune. But it is done very well, and the scale of the story warrants it, even though you don’t get quite as attached to any particular character as you otherwise might have done in, say, first-person or third-limited.
The story itself was very interesting, and kept me hooked throughout. There were some slight tonal shifts between parts that kept things feeling fresh, and lots of things happened that I did not expect at all. Frank Herbert’s writing style was fairly easy to read, although it took a bit of getting used to at the very beginning. There are some oddities in his style that show the book’s age - things like an over-use of filter words (saw, heard, smelled, felt etc…) that are more “telling” than “showing”, but perhaps the strangest thing was the author’s apparent disdain for the word “and”. A quick example of what I mean from early in the first chapter: “Paul sensed his own tensions, decided to practice one of the mind-body lessons his mother had taught him.” You see here the author has omitted the word “and” from the sentence between “tensions” and “decided”. This is typical of the writing of actions throughout the book. At first it was quite jarring (it’s certainly an odd choice), but I got used to it.
One thing that the author does do, which I would count as a bit of a negative, is shying away from actually describing the large-scale battles that happen in the course of the story - even the ones our main characters are involved with. There are small skirmishes and one-to-one fight scenes which are very well written, but the bigger battles are almost entirely absent. Instead, we join them before and after-the-fact, and the action is referred to by the characters in the aftermath. I personally would like to have seen these grand, sweeping battles, but perhaps Frank Herbert didn’t like writing them.
Each chapter begins with a short quote or excerpt from an in-universe literary work delivered by the Princess Irulan, mostly concerning the man, Muad’Dib. I’m not sure how I feel about them, to be honest, because in some respects they could be a bit spoilery for the oncoming chapter but they do give a nice introduction to a character that we don’t meet in the flesh until the last few chapters. Being cynical I could say that they feel like they serve as a clumsy way to hide the far-too-late introduction of the Princess character.
Speaking of the ending, I know I mentioned above that the tonal shifts in the book were a positive, but the one that happens at the end was a bit strange. Everything seemed to turn a bit tongue-in-cheek and I felt it was at odds with the rest of the book.
Characterisation was handled very well and though I didn’t feel like I got particularly invested in them, they were a vibrant cast of distinct characters. In the style of an epic, everyone was a little bit on the stoic side, but I think that fitted with the situations they found themselves in - especially for Paul.
Overall I found Dune to be a very enjoyable read and I certainly will be looking to read more in the series.
Typesetting and the 50th Anniversary Edition
Now, I’m putting this in its own section because I don’t want it to detract from the review of Frank Herbert’s story, and I’m going to go on a bit of a rant here. The version of the book I picked up was the 50th Anniversary Edition (pictured), and, my word, how disappointing it was! The cover is beautiful, but the typesetting was atrocious - somewhere between shoddy and nonexistent, in fact. It seemed a bit of an insult to the franchise to be honest, and this is not Frank Herbert’s fault (obviously). Not only were there numerous typos throughout (probably introduced by this version as I refuse to believe these could have survived for 50 years of reprints). The justification was badly managed, with huge rivers flowing through the text, and widows and orphans left all over the place (sometimes these are unavoidable and end up sticking around despite our best efforts to eradicate them, but it’s clear no attempt was made here). On top of all that, whoever put this together made the decision to have the chapters run continuously, rather than ensuring they start on the right-hand page as is standard practice - and even then they couldn’t be consistent about it! It all made for a very unpleasant reading experience. Also let’s talk about the blurb: I did some research to make sure, and I was right. This edition’s blurb is not the original, but a new one added for the 50th Anniversary. It’s awful, because it carries a huge spoiler right on the back of the book. A spoiler for a key event that doesn’t happen until nearly a third of the way through the story! And honestly, I think that’s one of the main reasons I couldn’t get attached to the character it was concerning, and felt nothing when the event finally came about.
So if you’re thinking of picking up Dune, my graphic designer heart is pleading with you to buy a different version.
