I’m really torn as to whether Dune is truly terrible because it did not age well, or because it’s just bad. I don’t even see how it was as revolutionary as it’s reputed. This may be the worst thing I’ve read in a very long time, and it’s so bad, it’s actually kind of impressive.
Most of the novel is characters standing around thinking “deep” thoughts or sometimes voicing said thoughts. Many have virtually no context and seem meant to be ever so meaningful and deep. And none of it matters anyways. The so-called hero of the story, Paul, at one point, thinks of his mother that she must become his enemy, but there’s no context, no reason, and it never comes up again by the end of the novel. Maybe it has something to do with one of the sequels, but I well and truly do not care.
Then there’s the skipping around in time and again there’s no context or reason for a lot of what happens, gets said, or is thought. Alia is supposedly somehow important, yet she really only gets the one scene, in which she is captured by the Baron, but how does she escape and how or why does she end up like she seems to? None of this is explained, and none of it seems to matters so why was it even there?
Then there’s the language. I remember hearing or reading somewhere that you can gauge the general quality of a fantasy or sci-fi story on the amount of made-up concepts and words it has. In general, the more made up terms, the lower the quality of the character and/or story. Whoever came up with that must have just read Dune. Sure there’s an Appendix, but who wants to read a novel during which you have to continuously flip between the actual “story” (which is laughably weak here) and the Appendix to follow along? There’s just not enough context in the novel to carry all the supposed meaningful language stuff. The Bene Gesserit thing is a prime example. Who and what this is is apparently some generic religious or magic training program that has some kind of hidden political agenda, but none of that is clear in the “story”. The Appendix only says it’s a physical and mental training program for mostly females and gives some made up historical reference. The phrase itself is actually Latin for “s/he {will have/might have} governed well”, but this is not common knowledge, and is not pointed out anywhere.
And then there’s the main character, Paul. Supposedly he’s a metaphor for Christ. He’s obviously a chosen one, but the Christ thing makes no sense. Firstly, his mother Jessica wants him to be the Savior/chosen one thing, he’s got a superiority complex and a chip on his shoulder the size of a planet, and he’s a generally terrible individual. Take his treatment of the women in his life. Would Christ agree to marry a princess for political reasons even though he knew it would hurt the woman he was already with and had had a child with? Would Christ be likely to tell the woman he was already with that he would never love the princess, but would marry her for the power? Unlikely.
I think this may be my first 1 star review. Definitely this year, and possibly since I joined for Cannonball 8. Congratulations to Dune; you’ve earned that.
