Dune is incredible. I have never been a big science fiction reader, but Frank Herbert’s classic has me really excited not only to continue exploring this world, but to adventure into different works in the genre. I have often heard Dune compared to the Lord of the Rings and treated as a work of similar genre-defining significance for science fiction as Tolkien’s is for fantasy. In a lot of ways this is true. Like Tolkien, Herbert clearly applied his deep passion and expert-level comprehension of the themes, academic fields, and ideas that interested him most when writing Dune. Behind the planets, worms, witches, and fights lies a fascinating take on politics, mythology, ecology, and religion that offers so much more than the surface-level narrative gives on its own. This is what distinguishes truly great works of fiction from just another piece of good entertainment.
Beyond the story itself, I also really enjoyed Herbert’s style. Dune is so well-written and readable, and there are so many great quotes, descriptions, and exchanges of dialogue that I found myself wishing I was reading a paperback copy I could dog-ear and underline.
My one quibble with Dune is so minor that it was actually cut from the recent film adaptations: the role of Alia. The character is incredibly strange (by design) in this novel and the role she plays toward the end of the story was underwhelming and I felt robbed of a more dramatic and fitting pay-off.
QUOTES:
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.”
“The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”
“What do you despise? By this are you truly known.”
“It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future.”
“A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.”
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
“Do you wrestle with dreams?
Do you contend with shadows?
Do you move in a kind of sleep?
Time has slipped away.
Your life is stolen.
You tarried with trifles,
Victim of your folly.”
“The test of a man isn’t what you think he’ll do. It’s what he actually does.”
The Once and Future Lit 