Finally red pic related

Don't feel bad OP. You're part of an anti-intellectual generation that can't think, interpret and analyze things without having your hand held at every moment.
Maybe try again when you're older, or try reading up on the themes and pay attention to them next time you attempt it.

Just read the first four books. God Emperor is better.

Do you read much literary fiction? I have a feeling the people who say it's good only really read genrefic (most of which is badly written), so they have a high tolerance for clunky prose. If you're used to good writing then it'd probably be a chore.

Cute! I got a (you) from Frank Herberts grandchildren or a regular shitposter.
Either is fine with me as along as I get my well deserved attention.

Would be interesting to hear those defending Frank Herbert's prose compare it to William Gibson, Neuromancer, which I preferred.
I realize taste is different but I'm always curious how it varies between works and how it's motivated.

There are more important things than good prose.

Don't tell me that you preferred Neuromancer to Dune.

4u, maybe. But even if you agree, if you've got used to good prose mediocre-to-bad prose can be hard to get through. Like watching a film with a great script but terrible acting.

like what?

>Don't tell me ...
Ok, I won't tell you. Quid pro quo - answer my question?

it's a children's adventure book dude. i read it when i was 12 and it was perfect. of course an adult can't be expected to buy into dune's fantasy of being a genius kid on an adventure among desert tribes, just like a sane adult will not go crazy for harry potter.

please don't compare Dune to Harry Potter

Harry Potter is a universally acclaimed masterpiece too ;^)

Yeah, such as well-developed characters or an interesting message or philosophy. I don't understand what does this have to do with Dune, though, because that book has none of the things we listed.

why? it served the exact same role in my life as harry potter did for people a bit younger than me. it's the same basic kind of escapist fantasy where a kid turns out to be the most special person in existence and he goes on an adventure to a strange new world where he faces trials and becomes a man. when i was 12 i was fantasizing about crysknives and house atreides just like harry potter fans fantasize about wands and house gryffindor or whatever. i memorized the stupid fremen words and phrases just like people memorize harry potter spells. why shouldn't i compare these things? they seem to me like two instances of the same exact experience.

>Why? It's the same basic kind of escapist fantasy where a kid turns out to be the most special person in existence and he goes on an adventure to a strange new world where he faces trials and becomes a man.
Because that is not what the story is about?

Because Dune is literally supposed to be an inversion of the traditional "boy discovers he has special powers and fulfills his destiny, gets the girl, and gains power" story. It uses elements of this archetype, but it subverts cliches at pretty much every turn.

First of all, the prophecy about Paul becoming the messiah is almost entirely bullshit, it's just a centuries old myth that the Bene Gesserit deliberately created in case they would ever need to exploit the Fremen at some point in the future. The fact that it ended up describing Paul is just a coincidence. Secondly, Dune takes a super harsh look at what would happen to the universe if someone with extraordinary power appeared. When Paul becomes the emperor he triggers a jihad in his name that kills something around 60 billion people. There was no holy war waged in the name of Harry Potter because he survived a killing curse of whatever. Also, when he fully gains his power he becomes increasingly isolated from even his closest friends. He describes it with Stilgar as having "lost a friend and gained a worshiper" or something to that effect. I'm not sure if you read Messiah, but the entire point of that book is that Paul's power becomes his own undoing, and he pretty much loses everything. So yeah, this book isn't exactly escapism.

Dune is about all kinds of shit, power, religion, fate, humanity, ecology, and so on. It's far more than just escapism. I'm not gonna rail on you because you didn't pick up on this stuff when you were 12, but if you read it again you'd realize how wrong you are to put it in the same league as Harry Potter.

this, good post my man

herbert as philosopher-critic-whatever is wickedly slept on

Having only read Dune, I can still see where you're coming from. That said, I have to agree with other posters in this thread that the writing itself outside of these themes comes across frequently as juvenile even for sci fi. Dumb plots propelled by nothing but cliches and one dimensional characters.

i think you vastly overstate how much it really subverts. yes, the fremen cult of him is fake, but underneath the fake myth there is the genuine breeding program that makes him a superhuman figure with messianic significance for the bene gesserit. that plus the combat and mentat training means that from the very beginning you're asked to identify with a protagonist that discovers himself to be special by birth or fate, just like other nerd escapism. it's notable that the negative consequences of his exploits are delayed until the second book, with dune itself following a completely traditional pattern with a heroic victory at the end, a straightforward villain to be defeated, a beloved father to be avenged, the respect of a warrior culture to gain, a girl to woo and so on. it doesn't really "invert" anything, it just makes it bittersweet (the dead kid, not marrying chani, the prospect of bloody war) so that paul can brood over the consequences of his actions, which is really part of the fantasy itself. the fantasy is of being a child prodigy and leads naturally to paul being so far beyond anyone else, intellectually, that everything depends on his choices. the subversion of the fantasy would be paul losing, not paul brooding about the victory. the burden is part of the fantasy. it's obviously escapism. i don't know how you can read about a teenage boy shocking a tribe of grizzled warriors first with his proficiency in a mortal duel and then with the depth of his sadness and claim it's not an escapist fantasy.

>Dune is about all kinds of shit, power, religion, fate, humanity, ecology, and so on.

what exactly does it say about these things? to what extent is it actually "about" them as opposed to simply furnishing the backdrop of the adventure with them? in terms of religion, is the idea that fremen are "zen-sunnis" meaningful beyond a namedrop? is the emperor being a "padishah" more significant than a harry potter spell being in fake latin? i don't even like harry potter but i can easily list serious-sounding things it's "about": fear of mortality, aristocracy, racial segregation, systems of justice and punishment, bureaucracy and institutional corruption, nature vs nurture, journalistic integrity, parental abuse and so on. of course it's all pretty trivial in harry potter but is it not also trivial in dune?

If you thought this was poorly written, that's a problem with your interpretation and not the book.

> a kid turns out to be the most special person in existence
And it's horrible and shit and he condemns the universe to religious war and purges, and that's the GOOD option
so magical and quaint.
On a less shit-posty note, when was the last time you read it?

>a problem with your interpretation
Not that user but..
You mean there is no bad prose, only bad readers?

No, I mean Dune is not bad prose.

>tfw read Brothers Karamazov, War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Les Miserables, Moby Dick, Faust, etc
>mfw dune is forever my favorite book

patrician

godspeed you dank emperor

>of course it's all pretty trivial in harry potter but is it not also trivial in dune?

I would make the argument that it is more than just trivial backdrop furnishings in Dune. It all has to do with the context and the way that the information is presented to the reader. In Harry Potter it's pretty clear that the books are designed to be compelling before anything else. There are very few chapters in Harry Potter that go by without any plot progression, excitement, romance, etc. In Dune there will be entire chapters were a couple characters enter a room, discuss politics or time or the nature of humans until the chapter ends. What I'm trying to say is that discussion of the themes of Dune takes up a significant amount of the book, so they should be considered as an important part of the book, whereas in Harry Potter the narrative is more important than anything else, so the themes take the back seat.

You did make some good points about the subversions, the original Dune is still an adventure book at it's core. But it's done in a mature enough way that it shouldn't be written off as purely "nerd escapism" because there is more going on than just a boy on an adventure. Also I never viewed Paul as a character I could identify with that much, but when I was younger I loved to imagine myself as Harry Potter. The difference between them is that Harry is a completely normal kid until his talents are revealed completely out of nowhere and he's thrown into a new magical world. Paul is far from normal growing up. He knows he's special, he's been trained since birth in learning combat, languages, how to rule when he gets older. His only friends are his parents and his teachers. An important part of escapism is that you're thinking "Hey, that could be me!" when you're reading it. I thought I could be Harry Potter but I never imagined being Paul Atreides.

>red
REEE

Loved Dune but I have an antipathy towards reading the sequels. I feel that Dune ended perfectly - approaching jihad and all. Can't imagine how that would not be tedious to read and from what I've read, seen and heard it appears I'm better off not bothering.

Dune Messiah is the real stopping point. You get the idea of where it was really going, and you get what Herbert was doing with the hero role. It's worth reading, but you really don't need to read anything past it. Dune 3 for closure, I guess.

>Why is it so popular?

It's a communist's/fascist's wet dream. The message of the story is that technology is innately evil, people can't take care of themselves and need a totalitarian gov't to do so, killing billions for the greater good is okay, etc. The most disturbing aspect of the story is that author wants the reader to sympathize with protagonist who's responsible for of all of this.

You can draw parallels with the events in the books to the events in 20th century history. Paul is basically Hilter/Genghis Khan/Stalin/Pol Pot who committed mass atrocities. It's obvious the author hates the bourgeoisie/educated class. Paul's Jihad was basically a campaign of extermination of all educated/wealthy people because they're the ones responsible for running society. Take away those people and you'll be left with uneducated peasants who are easy to control and could be kept at a low technological level, which was Paul's goal. He wanted advanced technology to be controlled only by the government while keeping everyone else at a primitive technological level "for the greater good". This is basically what the communists did in the 20th century.

Once you've read the first two books, you basically know where the story is heading and there's no reason to read any further.

>technology is innately evil
That wasn't Herbert's plan. The series never got to address technology completely while he was alive. In his son's shittily written conclusion two artificial intelligences which survived the Butlerian Jihad come back and the final conflict is with them. One AI destroys the other and reveals that it never intended to annihilate humanity and instead wanted to cooperate. At the end Duncan Idaho, who has lived many lifetimes due to constantly being reborn as a ghola, merges with the AI and becomes the true Kwizatz Haderach or whatever it's called. From here on it's implied that the universe is done with giant apocalyptic conflict for a while.

Never actually read it though, just looked it up out of curiosity because I heard it was so badly written.

hey look a good post. I don't really feel thrilled about Dune but I can appreciate your explanation. might try the series again.

>In Dune there will be entire chapters were a couple characters enter a room, discuss politics or time or the nature of humans until the chapter ends. What I'm trying to say is that discussion of the themes of Dune takes up a significant amount of the book, so they should be considered as an important part of the book, whereas in Harry Potter the narrative is more important than anything else, so the themes take the back seat.

i'm sorry but that's a crock of shit. i asked you what meaningful points dune actually makes and you're talking about what percentage of the book is dialogue. that's evasion. if anything, dune is more tightly plotted than potter, with every chapter in dune moving the story along or introducing an important character, whereas potter will frequently just have harry sit on his ass in dumbledore's office and listen to a lecture about mortality or desire or whatever. (seriously, where are those chapters in dune where nothing happens but a plot-irrelevant political debate? are you thinking about the later sequels?) so by your own strange criterion potter could be seen as the book "about themes" and dune as the compelling adventure story. fortunately for you, your criterion is bullshit anyway. you don't judge if something is trivial or meaningful by measuring its volume.

what i'm looking for is someone who can substantiate the mantra that "dune is about power, religion, fate, humanity, ecology" because i've heard it a lot but there seems to exist this aversion to engaging with these topics beyond enumerating them, as evidenced by your own strange swerve towards measuring dialogue volume. what does dune say about ecology beyond trivialities like "hard conditions produce hard men"? what does it actually mean to you when the fremen religion is revealed to be a malicious conspiracy by the bene gesserit? how does it relate to them being "zen-sunnis"? the world of dune is a sci-fi exaggeration of how a layman imagines the middle ages, is there some significant point about history being made there or is that just a convenient backdrop like in a fantasy novel?

if dune is not an escapist adventure but rather a philosophical treatise then what does it say, exactly?

odds and ends:

>there is more going on than just a boy on an adventure
this is true of all good adventure stories for kids.

>I thought I could be Harry Potter but I never imagined being Paul Atreides.
well i did and i knew other kids that did as well. some kids will respond to an "everyman" protagonist like potter and some will want to fantasize about being prodigies like paul.

you don't have to be a dick.

not that user.

You're viewing it through some weird consumerist lens user, this criticism works for Herbert's son as he seemingly just wants a cash cow but Frank had bigger ideas for Dune than a simple hero fantasy which he filters through quite well. You're seemingly ignoring all the postulation and criticism on religion, technology, politics, determinism and so on. It's more than just a power fantasy for boys and you'd likely even make one better off philosophically for reading it.

>You're seemingly ignoring all the postulation and criticism on religion, technology, politics, determinism and so on.

no, i'm just asking dune fans to explain what dune says, if dune indeed has things to say. i find it incredibly dubious that everyone can list some important-sounding topics that "dune's about" but nobody is able or willing to elaborate. i ask for specifics and i get the same list again.

i'm totally open to dune fans proving me wrong here, but posting a list of words over and over again is not doing it. the way to prove me wrong is to show that the book works beyond escapism by engaging in it beyond escapism and posting the results. what is it that dune teaches you about religion, power, etc? be specific.

For example it shows that humans and human societies are ruled by their instincts and not by logical reasoning. That history is defined by such rules of nature. That if someone were to have a complete knowledge of the universe they still wouldn't be able to change their human nature. That ideas like God and fate are just abstract representations of those rules of nature and that an individual human is powerless against them.

okay. if the point of dune is that individual intellect cannot control the irrational "nature" of human society, why does its entire universe show the opposite tendency? we're talking about a vast space empire that exhibits historically unheard of levels of (social, physical, technological) stasis. we're talking about institutions that wield power for literally millennia, and continue even after the supposedly catastrophic muad'dib jihad. even something that you would expect to be a "natural" outburst of irrationality, like the tribal religiosity of the fremen, is actually revealed to have all along been a precise instrument of social control, designed intellectually by an expert institution and later hijacked by its renegade members. and then there's the later books where a superpowered individual applies social and genetic engineering at an absurd, galactic scale, manufacturing the future of the entire fucking cosmos.

so how do you read a book about individuals and institutions performing absurd feats of mass social control and conclude that it's all about how intellect is "powerless" in the face of "nature"?

i'm beginning to suspect dune fans read dune for escapism and all that stuff about politics and religion is just fronting.

You're just repeating yourself, cancer. You've been rebuffed several times, courteously on the same topic and spew out the same non-response.

i'm sorry user, i just want to know what dune fans see in dune beyond escapism. they really hate talking about it though. like blood from a stone.

What is your criteria for a book to be "about" something then. Does there have to be no central plot at all? Why can't a book be several things at once? Why can't it simultaneously be an adventure story and have insights about, for example, how long standing power loses its edge due to excessive pomp and focus on rituals. The battle at the end of Dune is as much about how the emperor has become weak due to all of the bullshit of bureaucracy and scheming of the imperial court, and how the legendary saudarkar have completely lost their edge after being content to say they were the best for so long, as it is about seeing a cool sandworm battle. So why does it have to be 100% esacapism or 100% philosophy? The best books are never completely singular in their focus.

I'm trying to get back into reading things other than law textbooks. The Trial and Plato were kinda hard to get through so I tried Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and blazed through it in a few hours. Read the first chapter of Dune last night. It's kinda neat. It's interesting how sci-fi isn't always the most eloquent prose, but it always seems to be a page turner. I didn't realize Dune was supposed to be YA until reading this thread.

>I didn't realize Dune was supposed to be YA
that's because it isn't
it's just some sperg posting 10 different replies thinking everything with a plot is basically the same as harry potter

I don't think it was 'supposed to be YA'. Not sure if that even existed as a category at the time, but I don't think Herbert was writing specifically for teens or anything.

Do not listen to that man, Dune is far from YA. Trust your own judgement.

a book is about something when people read it as such. that's why i'm asking people what exactly they have learned about politics from dune, because just saying "politics are present in dune" is a trivial statement. politics are present in everything.

>So why does it have to be 100% esacapism or 100% philosophy?

you have pulled this out of your ass completely. i'm not asking you for proof of some imaginary purity. escapism is a mode of engaging with fiction, not some substance to be measured. let's just recap what's happening because there's a lot of confusion: i said people read dune as escapism. dune fans claim it's more than escapism. i asked that people show that it's not just escapism by explaining what they think dune means (therefore proving that they engage with dune on a level beyond escapism, therefore showing dune is not just escapism. this should all be clear).

turns out dune fans will fight tooth and nail to not have to talk about what dune means. the one guy that wrote something coherent claims that dune's about the powerlessness of intellect in the face of nature, which the text does not, as far as i can tell, support at all.

this is why i am more and more convinced that dune fans do, in fact, read dune only for escapism. i could be proven wrong by people simply talking coherently about what dune means but i'm not sure this tread is up to the challenge.

Of course the actions of humans influence events. Those are also a part of the grand scheme of things but the all efforts to consciously influence the outcome of a such a complex system to a definite result end up as failures.

>It's a communist's/fascist's wet dream. The message of the story is that technology is innately evil, people can't take care of themselves and need a totalitarian gov't to do so, killing billions for the greater good is okay, etc. The most disturbing aspect of the story is that author wants the reader to sympathize with protagonist who's responsible for of all of this.

T. critical reading abilities of a second grader

Dune is just boomers hunger games

Dune shows how a religion can become estranged from it's founding principles by opportunists who seek to gain wealth and power by exploiting the religion. This is shown (admittedly more in Messiah than in the original) by Paul's jihad happening against his will, and the high priests of this religion growing fat and wealthy over the spoils of this conquest.

Dune shows how most people are unwilling to put the greater good before personal desires. Paul gets revenge on those who betrayed his family, but in doing so triggers a chaotic war and turns the empire into a despotic theocracy. Jessica gives her husband a son, and fucks up a centuries old breeding program which leads to the most powerful human ever being set loose instead of being used in a controlled manner.

Dune shows how excessive grandeur makes a government weak. When the emperor shows up to deal with Paul, he brings all the hairdressers and attendants of the imperial court, instead of just setting up a proper military base. The sardaukar are overconfident in their abilities because they haven't faced a proper threat in centuries, so they get their shit kicked in by the superior fremen.

Christ user, you're making me feel like I'm back in English class.

>in terms of religion, is the idea that fremen are "zen-sunnis" meaningful
I'm not really a Dune fan, but I'd say so- it shows how religious beliefs split and recombine in weird and unexpected ways over time, and it rejects the 'modernisation = secularisation" assumption (i.e. that more technology = less religion)- Zen and Sunni beliefs have, in whatever hybrid form, clearly survived the centuries.

why do spoilers even exist on this board?

So you can be a smartass.

Dune is old now. It's ideas and plot were big at the time it was new, but Dune has been assimilated into the greater ideas and knowledge of all other modern entertainment. You've been experiencing the effect of Dune all your life already, before you ever read it. This makes Dune taste like a well done steak- a piece of leather to chew instead of the juicy morsel it once was.

this. just like the bible.

Delete this right now you rancid swine

>turns out dune fans will fight tooth and nail to not have to talk about what dune means
Haven't been part of your conversations, but I don't think so. It's more that you're asking for a comprehensive yet off-the-cuff book report from people who probably haven't freshly read the text. I don't have to parse every theme in the book right this moment to confidently agree with those in this thread that consider it a deeper, more serious work than Harry Potter.

That is far from what I'd expect from a quality book. You see, you're just writing statements. Similar statements can be derived from Harry Potter as well. Institutions can abuse their power, friendship is important, power corrupts things are like this or like that yadda yadda.
Total banalities that exist in every book because they just reflect the writer's values. The writer doesn't even have to realize that they include such ideas in their stories at all, they can just slip in.
Look on the other hand at Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy. Their books are not a statement, they are a discourse. Each character has their own ideas and philosophies that clash throughout a book in complex ways. Does Dune have anything comparable to such novels? I don't want statements, I want discourse.

What people forget to mention is also Herbert's terrible characterization. His characters have the emotional and psychological depth of a wooden plank. When there's an assassination attempt directed at Paul, how does his father react? Throughout one chapter from his POV, the narrative is regularly interrupted by his internal thought "They tried to kill my son". What should that cause in the reader? Yes, we know that they tried to kill his son, that is a fact, a statement, but how did he respond as a human being? Is he afraid? Is he angry? Surely he can think of more than one sentence to repeat? We have no idea, because Herbert couldn't write humane characters.
When Yueh is forced to betray house Atredies, how does he respond? During one chapter he is said to look sad. At the end of the chapter, when he is left alone, he asks himself "why did that have to happen to him". And that's it, that's all the characterization that occurs. A better writer could've created a whole arc here, actually bringing duty and emotions into direct conflict, turning Yueh into a detailed, relatable human being. But Herbert is not a good writer, so he couldn't have done that, even on a smaller scale.

Dune Messiah was even worse in this regard, dialogues felt like robots exchanging informations. The moment when I closed Messiah and returned the book to the library was when a character used some invented, futuristic phrase, but with clear and banal meaning. Then Herbert stopped everything and spent a paragraph explaining what the phrase means and where it comes from. That is not good writing. That is precisely nothing more than escapist wanky worldbuilding.

God, reading these scenes just reminds me how even poorly plotted this book was.

I found the prose serviceable and the ideas behind the universe (spice, worms, witches, etc.) to be more than interesting, actually somewhat brilliant. But once the story got into motion, I found that Stephen King overexplaining and awkward maneuvering of plot (thankfully without Stephen "Smug" King's affected style) and a Mary Sue (Paul was more Mary Sue than anything I've read in Western Literature).

Dune was dreck. Not Stephen King-level dreck, but dreck.

You mean nerds love their dune ripoff?

What about reading real Literature?

Ehh? No, in no way. You mean contrarian/Philistine

Good post.

>how did he respond as a human being? Is he afraid? Is he angry?
He is obviously both, since the idea of his son bein assasinated dominates his thought...
You could interpret it as a powerful way of portraying just how angry and afraid he is, since the event pushes all other ideas to the side.

>His characters have the emotional and psychological depth of a wooden plank.
Paul and his mother are trained to control their emotions and psyche. It is to be expected that they aren't subject to whims.
Paul also grows much in the first novel and struggles with the role of prophet he has to assume.
Further, the other side characters aren't flat imo. An example can be the tension that exists between Stilgar and Paul, with Stilgar going from friend to worshipper...

>What should that cause in the reader?
>A better writer could've created a whole arc here, actually bringing duty and emotions into direct conflict, turning Yueh into a detailed, relatable human being.
Yeah. That does sound like the thoughts of someone who reads only to self-insert.

>Paul gets revenge on those who betrayed his family, but in doing so triggers a chaotic war and turns the empire into a despotic theocracy

When he walks into the desert to finalize his fate in Dune, what does Paul truly achieve?
He was blinded by the golden path, he believed he could get his revenge and not trigger a jihad. Although, his son, realizes he was a cowardly bastard who couldn't finalize that idea, by becoming the God Emperor, he escaped from this responsibility. Couldn't he have made things right? Couldn't that at the very least, redeemed himself for going for his personal gain, and sacrificing himself for the REAL greater good? Not letting his son suffer through God Emperor.
>His characters have the emotional and psychological depth of a wooden plank
May I disagree with this?
Just because it had one of my favorite character moments when Paul is told he can't buy friendship with money, but he asks if he can buy loyalty with loyalty. I think that was a nice nuance to the characters in the deal, or at the beginning where the big feast is had between all the different representatives of the factions, hidden or not, and how each and everyone is reading the reactions of the other, and what they presume based on that is actually a reflection on their own characters.
>they tried to kill my son
That was a great moment, come on. It was meant to show a character that so far was thinking crystal clear, with a well-thought out plan, and how his brain got poisoned by his one true weakness. Family.
>Yueh
I thought Yueh's reaction was less important than the build up to his betrayal. We knew everything about the betrayal, we needed to know what the character was to the Artredies, and what he needed to betray someone like that.
>banal meanings to words and explaining them
Okay, I do agree with that. I loved the Ixian meaning though.

I have the same question for the Culture series

You mean, you didn't enjoy the story of drug-fueled Nietzschean superhumans in the distant future fighting to control the destiny of the human species through Machiavellian intrigue, eugenics, and precognition?