The Pops (4): Dune, Frank Herbert

I didn't plan it this way.

Of course I knew a science-fiction novel had to be part of my survey of popular fiction. And seeing as Frank Herbert's Dune is, at least according to some sources, the world's best-selling science fiction novel of all time I thought it was an obvious choice. I had read it over 20 years ago, but pretty much forgotten what it was about beyond the sand, the spice, and the giant worms.

I was not thinking of the contemporary relevance of a book about a rapacious family dynasty of uber-capitalists treacherously using an Imperial army to conquer a resource-rich desert planet inhabited by tribes of primitive, fundamentalist Space Arabs (the descendants of "Sunni ancestors"). 

Not that this is a new way of looking at Dune. Apparently Herbert's first novel, The Dragon in the Sea, had as its premise a future global conflict over oil, so I don't think there's any doubt that when he came to write Dune he was imagining the spice of Arrakis as being the equivalent of our black gold. Long before the present Imperial power publicly confessed its "addiction to oil," the future was hooked on melange. And I think this is the way the best SF has always worked - as a commentary on our present condition, reflecting current cultural anxieties and concerns. 1984 had a lot less to do with 1984 than 1948, the year it was written. We shouldn't be surprised that Dune has the kind of echoes it does today - unless we're surprised that these elements are still relevant. 

It wasn't an immediate hit when it was published back in 1965. It's the sort of book (and, subsequently, franchise) that takes a while to draw you into its world. Which, as with The Lord of the Rings, is imaginatively exhaustive. The history, the language, the religion, the science, and the geography (as per convention, detailed in hand-drawn maps), all combine to create a self-contained mythic universe. Or almost. The science-fiction author Robert Sawyer explains the difference between fantasy and science-fiction by seeing the latter as a vision of the future realistically extrapolated from science and technology; that is, a future we could imagine actually happening. Fantasy (and some "soft" SF) rejects this reality principle and builds its castles in the air, defying reason, probability, and what we know of the laws of physics. When you look at it this way you can see why so many fantasy novels turn into series: the alternate realities they present are totally other, operating as worlds unto themselves. Such systems allow for an almost infinite variety within their given boundaries. And yes, at times they seem a little obsessive and insane as well. When Herbert attributes a chapter epigraph to a book held in "private circulation," "B. G. file number AR-81088587," we realize we aren't in Wessex or Yoknapatawpha any more but rather a totally immersive imaginative environment like those found in online virtual worlds or fantasy role-playing games.

There's no denying the planet Arrrakis has a lot in common with such other imaginary fantasy realms as Middle Earth and Dragon World. The fantasy quotient on Arrakis is high. Its vision of the far future is surprisingly low-tech, even archaic, with feudal hierarchies of Emperors, Princesses, Dukes, and Barons, and faux-medieval sword-play, folk tunes, poison, and magic. One imagines, I think quite properly, these futuristic lords and ladies delivering their lines in the best Shakespeherian English. Or, in the case of the villains, a leering Cockney: 

  "Why'n't we kill 'em here?" Scarface asked. 
  "Too messy," the first one said. "Unless you wants to strangle 'em. Me, I likes a nice straightforward job."

Yes, it's Masterpiece Theatre presents . . . the future!

So, like a lot of the most successful sci-fi novels (a genre better suited to short fiction), Dune gets a big assist from some generic cross-breeding. Included in its DNA are familiar myths that ground the story even more securely in the fantasy tradition, chief among them the tale of an orphaned boy coming of age and having to fight to reclaim his noble inheritance - the story of Moses and Arthur and Harry Potter, among countless others. Commercially at least, you just can't go wrong with an archetype.

Which is all a long way of saying that, as with many of the books that fall into the Pops category, Dune is formulaic. 

Formulaic and, what is not always the same thing, almost totally without surprises. 

Herbert seems not to believe in suspense. I'd like to think there's some justification for this in the proleptic drugs that allow Paul to see into the future, but there's more to it than that. The Baron Harkonnen, for example, always explains his dastardly plots fully and well in advance so you know exactly what's going to happen. And the private thoughts of characters are regularly presented in italics, contributing to the feel of "what you see is what you get" - a sort of narrative hand-holding typical of popular fiction. Nothing happens in this book that isn't what you knew was going to happen, because it is what you were told was going to happen. All of the essential elements of character and plot are laid bare as we go along. Which leads to another curious effect. Just as Herbert is incapable of building suspense, he is indifferent to the notion of dramatic climax. Where is the payoff? Book Two presumably ends in a kind of druggy orgy, but it takes place offstage. And the grand finale, whose conclusion is never in any doubt as Paul is always conscious of his fate, is a decidedly rushed job. The battle for Arrakis is over before we're aware it's started. Baron Harkonnen is dispatched in a sentence (I didn't even realize he'd been killed, and had to go back to find the passage later). In keeping with the sexual parallel - obvious enough in this instance anyway - the death of Feyd-Rautha is positively anti-climactic:

  Paul twisted his left hand free, aided by the lubrication of blood from his arm, thrust once hard up underneath Feyd-Rautha's jaw. The point slid home into the brain. Feyd-Rautha jerked and sagged back, still held partly on his side by the needle imbedded in the floor.

And that's it. Now on to the real business of ecology, religion and genealogy dealt with in the Appendixes!

It's probably clear I didn't enjoy the book very much this time out. In fact, I thought it was lousy. A lot of popular literature appeals to different audiences and age categories, having something to say to all of them. But Dune is a book for children and not for adults. The characters are genre stereotypes, the writing is fantasy fustian, and the plotting tedious. In other words, it's a comic book. Given the kinds of contemporary correspondences I started off talking about, it's surprisingly void of any political or moral resonance. Like most children's books it is pure escape. Even the Bene Gesserit wisdom literature is all just so much New Age goo. Those prophecies, however, did help prepare the way for another extravagantly successful dip into the spiritus mundi of adolescent romance cliché. Not the sequels Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, and all the rest of the bloated (and still ongoing) Dune saga. But that other classic of backward-looking SF, set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . .