My Thoughts on the first sub-book of Dune

I have been reading Dune and finished the first sub-book, its a wonderful book that has been somewhat spoiled for me in certain ways. Even still its a thoroughly interesting book. As a way to save space instead of typing up my thoughts directly into a discord post I am going to type it into a blog post. This will be shorter, less structured and somewhat akin to a conversation I am having by myself. So yeah.

SPOILERS AHEAD YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

The structure and clarifying what terms mean

Dune is large. Through the many books, sequels, adaptations, and movies. When you say the word “Dune” you in turn refer to every single entity and sub entity of this franchise. When I refer to the book Dune, I am referring to the first book in the series. When I am referring to the sub-books of Dune, I am referring to the individual partitions within the book Dune. For me that is broken into “Book 1: Dune”, “Book 2: Muad’Dib”, “Book 3: The Prophet”. Idk if this is the same or different in different publications but I will continue to refer to these as the sub-books. I have finished the first sub-book and this is the basis of most of what I am writing about

The first book of Dune

I don’t know what it is about this book but Dune has gripped me and has not let go. This is my second time starting Dune (I will get onto why later) but in about a month I have powered through quite a bit of this book. In a lot of ways its dense with meaning, meaning that does not always reveal itself until later. Its descriptions are deep but do not drag. Its world is fleshed out but only as much as needed (witty comparison to a Fremen or something). In other words it’s well written.

But to begin with, it is also slow. Within the first 250 pages not a lot of action happens and this world is just being set up. Questions being asked and the future being foreshadowed. But this is not to say it never picks up. Our patience is rewarded as we finish this sub-book where all of this set up pays off with a bang. This slowness does not detract however. The way Frank Herbert uses words is able to convey such rich emotion, that I felt like I was riding in that Thopter alongside Duke Leto, I could feel the weight that Barron Harkonen’s suspensors have to deal with, and feel actual disgust in his gluttony. It requires underlining how well this book is written.

On spoilers

Before I get into the actual content of this book, Some words on my experiences need to be mentioned as it will poison my thinkings.

I wish I could go into this book blind, but as I am writing this (March 2024) the world is picking up Dune en mass and talking about it. So through osmosis and my own stupidity I am learning things about the book I should not know. I am now going to figure out how to spoiler text in a blog post but I will list some of the small things I have seen. Also curse you Instagram reels.

If you have not finished the first two books of the Dune series. Then do not open any of these. Don’t open the last one unless you have finished the 6 books (I have no idea where it comes from)

This is only a spoiler if you are like me and don’t want any thoughts about the book to taint your experiences.

In this sense these spoilers don’t stop me from reading but still do spoil the experience. I have had a few more paper cuts probably but ill add them as I remember

On this world and the characters of Dune

Within this world we seem to have some kind of overarching flavor of destiny. Destiny for the desert plant of Arakis, destiny for each character that attaches itself to this planet.

For Leto it is death. “There is nothing for him” the Reverend Mother says. For Paul it is his roles as messiah. For the planet, illusions of a stable and prolific water cycle. Nothing in this world seems to come completely out of left field. There is always some kind of insight, some kind of foreshadowing for these events. In this sense every word is something to hang onto as if it leads to some kind of future event. This is not only something for the reader because it has an effect on our characters. We see them refer back to these prophecies as we continue through and work with the conclusions they come too. We see how the world shapes these characters as they pick up its mannerisms and movements.

It brings me onto the details of this world. It is not only painted with large vistas but also with small details. One scene that sticks with me is when a Fremen comes into the Arakeen great hall and spits on the table. Everyone was ready to attack this person for disrespecting the Duke but in turn the person sent ahead stops them and thanks them for the gesture of sharing his moisture with the Duke, a great sign of respect on a planet where water is so very scarce. Through little devices like this an entire canvas is painted. A culture fleshed out and reinforcements of core ideas are shared.

On the language of Dune

I have heard from others that the language in this book required a glossary? To me this feels odd as the book has not failed to cover its tracks.

Take for example the term “Mentat”. This is referred to multiple times to describe our characters, some of them belong to this class and they seem to be made, but what they are is never fully explained until Paul goes through this transformation near the end of this sub-book. Through his experiences of this transformation, we understand what makes a Mentat different from a person. This applies to a couple more ideas and phrases. “Lisan Al-Gaib” is mentioned as some kind of messiah figure but then Kynes actually goes into detail about it as he sees Paul act like this messiah.

Muad’Dib is mentioned, again and again at the beginning of each chapter. Usually in the header, from excerpts of his selected writings or children’s guides or other works by the Princess Irulan. But it is only until we reach the end of this chapter that we see how its actually Paul who is this Muad’Dib and what it means. He is not only this messiah “Lisan Al-Gaib” but also this leader.

This is not to say that if you were to use a glossary that the reading would be spoiled but to say that the language is not there by accident and will resolve itself as we move through this story.

What I have learnt about myself while reading Dune

I don’t really have more to say about Dune the book. But while I have been reading this I have learnt a few things about myself.

I can finish big books. With a little time before bed each day I can get through large sections of a book. and I can do it in reasonable times. But in this case I am helped by a few things

Good typesetting is a must. If a book has not been well typeset then its harder to get through and I struggle to finish it. This is why I put dune down the first time. The (digital) copy I had was hard to read and hard to parse. Not in the sense the words were hard to read, but in the sense that different things should look different. In this case what added to my confusion is that chapters were not really separated and the chapter introductions by the Princess Irulan were really not separated from the main body of text. All of this adds up to a not great reading experience

I need smaller chapters I can see the progress of. I am a person, who partly because of internet brain rot, needs smaller chapters I can see my progress in. 50 pages in a chapter is too much for me to read comfortably without some kind of break. There are books where chapters represent hundreds of pages and you need to kinda just pick a point to put it down. This is not to say I can’t read these books but like small chapters make it easy. This also feeds into typesetting as my e-reader can track how far I am into a chapter. I can see I am nearly done pretty quickly as a percentage and I can call it quits or keep going pretty neatly.

Conclusions

Dune is a good book, Ill come back when I finish sub-book 2. All of this reads as almost a superficial understanding of the book of Dune. I think that’s okay for the moment though as I have not gotten that deep into the book. Lets see how I feel after finishing sub-book 2.

Also thanks to Leo from A blog with relevant information for proof reading my work and suggesting some improvements. Hopefully next time the patch is a little smaller!