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A review by thebookbin
Dune by Frank Herbert
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-paced
3.0
So I just finished Dune. I first read it in 5th grade and I’m glad I took the time to reread it but also... not.
A lot of the hot takes of this book is the “white savior” narrative but this book is a criticism of the white savior narrative. The only problem is that to criticize it, it includes the white savior narrative.
Paul, the main character, is the villain of the story. The interesting thing is that his opponents are also villains: imperialism has rendered the universe flawed with no good options.
Paul is definitely a white boy power fantasy. He is trained in all manner of fighting and his mother’s magic, but of course he surpasses her and eventually can see all of time: past-present-future. What starts as a boy’s quest to avenge his father becomes a new emperor’s takeover of the universe.
The first half of the novel is unbearably slow. So much time is dedicated to politics and such tiny machinations it comes as a shock when they are betrayed and the house falls to ruin. It really feels like the stakes are so high because we as the reader were invested in these politics only for them to become useless. But then the book just blasts forward so fast and abandons that attention to detail in order to skip ahead in time all of the sudden Paul is married with a baby. We don’t get to witness his rise of power within the Fremen, which makes sense if you’re looking at this story through the anti-white-savior lens. The story focuses on Paul’s rise to power as an evil dictator, so the politics of the Fremen aren’t really as important, but it’s such a jarring switch of pace.
It also completely escaped me the first time, idk how because it’s not subtle, but the lesser baddie is gay, but not really. The evil Vladimir Harkonnen, who enslaved and entire planet and who is the colonizer supreme has a taste for little boys. This is supposed to highlight his unnaturalness: at one point he tells his men to drug a slave boy and put him in his room because he’s “not interested in wrestling”. That and the fact that he’s fat are supposed to signal to us that he’s evil, and it just really doesn’t sit well. Yes, gays can be evil, but you get the sense that this isn’t that—we’re supposed to be disgusted with the fact that he’s gay. For me it was the fact that they’re just boys, but you just know how the author thinks about it.
But on the other hand, it’s strangely progressive. One of the main characters, Lady Jessica, is one of the most powerful characters in the story and has a lot of her own agency, and yet at the same time how Herbert treats women really doesn’t sit well. Lady Jessica is a witch of the Bene Gessirit, who has cool powers and is part of a religious order. Her storyline is awesome. But although she physically fights a few times, again it’s very clear how Herbert views women. There are no female soldiers or just regular women around—even when they are physically capable they are still limited to other roles: mother, wife, priestess. There are just no regular women they way there are men.
Yet the final lines of the book are dedicated to the women: Lady Jessica, although beloved by the Duke, was never married to him and only a concubine. Minor spoiler: When Paul marries someone he doesn’t love at the end of the book, his mother consoles the one he does love: “We who carry the name concubine, history will call us wives.”
End spoiler.
I am fascinated by Dune's portrayal of religion: in that it’s entirely skeptical. In the book the Bene Gessirit are an intergalactic organization that want to bring about a powerful being through complicated breeding and genes. In order to do this, they go to planets and seed religions, and both Paul and Lady Jessica know this. Paul’s position as the Lisan al Gaib is literally a fake religion that the Bene Gessirit planted in their culture thousands of years ago and—even though both Paul and Lady Jessica know this, Paul actually begins to think he is the Lisan al Gaib and Jessica just kind of….lets him.
And Paul is so sure he’s the messiah and his visions are accurate but there’s literally no indication he’s actually seeing the future, he’s just kinda really confident
All in all I enjoyed the macro political machinations and the really cool worldbuilding of Arrakis. But as someone who grew up religious I also think this book is too subtle. Paul is the villain but I guarantee 85% of white men who read this will come away thinking he’s the hero.
I understand what it was trying to do, I just don’t think it did it completely successfully. And while I understand it’s considered a classic and revolutionary in the genre, I’m not interested in reading a straight white man’s take on politics and the universe when there’s so much out there that interests me more.
3/5 stars
A lot of the hot takes of this book is the “white savior” narrative but this book is a criticism of the white savior narrative. The only problem is that to criticize it, it includes the white savior narrative.
Paul, the main character, is the villain of the story. The interesting thing is that his opponents are also villains: imperialism has rendered the universe flawed with no good options.
Paul is definitely a white boy power fantasy. He is trained in all manner of fighting and his mother’s magic, but of course he surpasses her and eventually can see all of time: past-present-future. What starts as a boy’s quest to avenge his father becomes a new emperor’s takeover of the universe.
The first half of the novel is unbearably slow. So much time is dedicated to politics and such tiny machinations it comes as a shock when they are betrayed and the house falls to ruin. It really feels like the stakes are so high because we as the reader were invested in these politics only for them to become useless. But then the book just blasts forward so fast and abandons that attention to detail in order to skip ahead in time all of the sudden Paul is married with a baby. We don’t get to witness his rise of power within the Fremen, which makes sense if you’re looking at this story through the anti-white-savior lens. The story focuses on Paul’s rise to power as an evil dictator, so the politics of the Fremen aren’t really as important, but it’s such a jarring switch of pace.
It also completely escaped me the first time, idk how because it’s not subtle, but the lesser baddie is gay, but not really. The evil Vladimir Harkonnen, who enslaved and entire planet and who is the colonizer supreme has a taste for little boys. This is supposed to highlight his unnaturalness: at one point he tells his men to drug a slave boy and put him in his room because he’s “not interested in wrestling”. That and the fact that he’s fat are supposed to signal to us that he’s evil, and it just really doesn’t sit well. Yes, gays can be evil, but you get the sense that this isn’t that—we’re supposed to be disgusted with the fact that he’s gay. For me it was the fact that they’re just boys, but you just know how the author thinks about it.
But on the other hand, it’s strangely progressive. One of the main characters, Lady Jessica, is one of the most powerful characters in the story and has a lot of her own agency, and yet at the same time how Herbert treats women really doesn’t sit well. Lady Jessica is a witch of the Bene Gessirit, who has cool powers and is part of a religious order. Her storyline is awesome. But although she physically fights a few times, again it’s very clear how Herbert views women. There are no female soldiers or just regular women around—even when they are physically capable they are still limited to other roles: mother, wife, priestess. There are just no regular women they way there are men.
Yet the final lines of the book are dedicated to the women: Lady Jessica, although beloved by the Duke, was never married to him and only a concubine. Minor spoiler: When Paul marries someone he doesn’t love at the end of the book, his mother consoles the one he does love: “We who carry the name concubine, history will call us wives.”
End spoiler.
I am fascinated by Dune's portrayal of religion: in that it’s entirely skeptical. In the book the Bene Gessirit are an intergalactic organization that want to bring about a powerful being through complicated breeding and genes. In order to do this, they go to planets and seed religions, and both Paul and Lady Jessica know this. Paul’s position as the Lisan al Gaib is literally a fake religion that the Bene Gessirit planted in their culture thousands of years ago and—even though both Paul and Lady Jessica know this, Paul actually begins to think he is the Lisan al Gaib and Jessica just kind of….lets him.
And Paul is so sure he’s the messiah and his visions are accurate but there’s literally no indication he’s actually seeing the future, he’s just kinda really confident
All in all I enjoyed the macro political machinations and the really cool worldbuilding of Arrakis. But as someone who grew up religious I also think this book is too subtle. Paul is the villain but I guarantee 85% of white men who read this will come away thinking he’s the hero.
I understand what it was trying to do, I just don’t think it did it completely successfully. And while I understand it’s considered a classic and revolutionary in the genre, I’m not interested in reading a straight white man’s take on politics and the universe when there’s so much out there that interests me more.
3/5 stars
Content Warnings
Moderate: Pedophilia, Sexual assault, and Homophobia