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Frank Herbert's Dune, 50 Years On
An anonymous reader writes: This October will be the 50th anniversary of Frank Herbert's massively popular and influential sci-fi novel Dune. The Guardian has written a piece examining its effects on the world at large, and how the book remains relevant even now. Quoting: 'Books read differently as the world reforms itself around them, and the Dune of 2015 has geopolitical echoes that it didn't in 1965, before the oil crisis and 9/11. ... As Paul's destiny becomes clear to him, he begins to have visions 'of fanatic legions following the green and black banner of the Atreides, pillaging and burning across the universe in the name of their prophet Muad'Dib.' If Paul accepts this future, he will be responsible for 'the jihad's bloody swords,' unleashing a nomad war machine that will up-end the corrupt and oppressive rule of the emperor Shaddam IV (good) but will kill untold billions (not so good) in the process. In 2015, the story of a white prophet leading a blue-eyed brown-skinned horde of jihadis against a ruler called Shaddam produces a weird funhouse mirror effect, as if someone has jumbled up recent history and stuck the pieces back together in a different order."
the story of a white prophet leading a blue-eyed brown-skinned horde of jihadis
They were not blue eyed in the normal sense of iris color. They were blue eyed in the sense that the drug they were saturated with had turned the whites of their eyes blue. And for heavy long term users it could be a dark blue making their eyes seem black at a distance.
... um, yeah, that's the eerie parallel. OK.
Yeah Herbert's "Shaddam" is similar to "Saddam", like Nostradamus' "Hister" was similar to "Hitler". Next season the "History Channel" will be running shows discussing possible extraterrestrial influences on Herbert's writings. :-)
Herbert was exactly writing about hydraulic despotism, which is a common thing for varying definitions of "hydraulic". Oil is the big one right now, but water is showing all signs of being the next. As for revolution, anyone compassionate enough to be a good leader will have to face the choice that what path they are embarking upon will lead to death and destruction. Playing a race card is just shock value clickbait...
T. E. Lawrence is missing in the action of writing summaries.
T. E. Lawrence is missing from many places, especially the reading lists of the politicians and diplomats who tried to manage the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. That said, Lawrence is also absent from the reading lists of many who criticize the US' anti-terrorist efforts. Regardless of your opinions regarding the wars, US policy, etc Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" is an absolutely informative and insightful book and "both" sides of the issue will learn from it.
I wonder how long he or todays t.e,would last in the middle east today ?
One major difference between then and now is that according to the Arab leaders of the day who explained things to Lawrence, a fundamentalist movement arose once or twice a century for many centuries. And when these fundamentalists became troublesome the moderate majority would rise up against them, from the mosque to the street and everything in between. But the Arab leaders added that such fundamentalists are always lurking somewhere so it will be best to travel in native clothing and with a native guard in the desert.
Perhaps I am mistaken but I think the fundamentalists becoming troublesome refers to something far less than what we are seeing today. The cultural understanding and respect and the diplomacy of Lawrence would not help him much in an environment where being a local moderate muslim can be a death sentence.
A good workmanlike book? It is to SF what The Lord of the Rings is to fantasy, and one of the greatest pieces of world creation ever written.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Frank is a deeper fellow than all but a few really grasp.
"The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action."
- Frank Herbert.
How perfectly does that describe the Guardian and most of its readership?
Um... not very well?
soylentnews.org
Plus ca change...
30 year old description but still scarily accurate:
"The Daily Mirror is read by the people who think they run the country. The Guardian is read by people who think they *ought* to run the country. The Times is read by the people who actually *do* run the country. The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Financial Times is read by people who *own* the country. The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by *another* country. The Daily Telegraph is read by the people who think it is."
Many years ago, I wrote an article on Arabic and Islamic themes in Frank Herbert's Dune. It includes many etymological info on terms used in Dune.
Hope some of you enjoy it.
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Wow. Herbert, looking for exotic inspiration for his stories, uses elements of the Arab, Persian and Muslim world thus making his stories very different from the vast majority of scifi at the time, which tended to be was based in civilizations resembling those built by Jews and Christians in moderate climates (most authors start with what they and their readers are familiar with and then get busy telling a story). Herbert floods his stories with words that have a middle-eastern sound, scenery straight out of "Lawrence of Arabia", middle-eastern-style tribal and martial behaviors, and titles the first book "Dune" as if to put a huge capstone advertizing this on the endeavor. This is all obvious to the early readers of the work. The military aspects of Dune are obvious both in the way the off-world forces approach Arrakis (an actual Arabic word) like Westerners approaching the Arab/Muslim world. The Fremen are clearly modeled on the tribal people of the middle-east, and therefore are organized and fight as those people have historically organized themselves and fought (absent the scifi props of worms and such). Even the spice is an allegory both for oil (which from a Western perspective "must flow" and is required for transportation across large distances) and for actual drugs (such as the heroin from Afghanistan)
Decades pass
Ignorant morons pickup the book "Dune", skim through it (or, admittedly, SOME even READ it), and declare that the author was amazingly prophetic and that aspects of what he wrote seem to have a mysterious connection to the modern world etc.
[face palm]
One one level it's very a funny display of extreme ignorance, but on another level it's a disturbing display of intellectual failure. This confusion about cause-and-effect, source-and-sink, and otherwise backward thinking is right up there with cargo cultism and is an indictment of the reasoning and education of the person displaying it.
That is complete nonsense.
Everyone I'm aware about doing bible interpretations is fully aware about the fact that the bible was written by humans.
We all know Jesus was not "walking on water" as the amaraic phrase only means "to stroll at the beach".
With all due respect, "everyone you're aware of" does not constitute probably much but a tiny fraction of the diversity of religious belief in the world. Just google "Bible divinely inspired" or see the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inspiration or view a local evangelical or fundamentalist church service. Many Christians do believe that while the Bible was written by humans, it was divinely inspired and as such is the literal word of God.
This belief is even more universal in Islam, where there is much less of a history of critical or literary theory reading of the Qur'an. It's a tenet of faith that the Qur'an was "revealed" to Muhammad one revelation at a time. There is a concept of the "Umm al-Kitab" -- the mother book -- a sort of celestial ur-book of wisdom and religious teaching that sets there floating in the ether. The Qur'an is but a portion of the umm al-kitab that God chose to reveal to Muhammad.
Care to point some out? AFAIK the new testament has not much to say about sexuality.
Sure. Most are in the Pauline epistles (that's actually why I mentioned Paul in the section of mine you quoted), but they appear directly as quotes from Jesus too. Here are just a few:
Jesus:
http://www.biblestudytools.com/nkjv/matthew/passage/?q=matthew+5:27-28 -- Looking at a woman with lust is the same as adultery. (Matthew 5:27-28)
http://www.biblestudytools.com/nkjv/matthew/passage/?q=matthew+5:31-32 -- Divorce is as bad as adultery. (Matthew 5:31-32). (You can also get out of these two that adultery is bad)
Paul:
http://www.biblestudytools.com/nkjv/1-corinthians/passage/?q=1-corinthians+5:1-5 -- Sexual immorality is a big deal. (1 Corinthians 5:1-5)
http://www.biblestudytools.com/nkjv/romans/passage/?q=romans+1:26-32 -- More on sexual immorality. Those practice such things (one of such things being ... well, read it and see!) are "deserving of death." (Romans 1:26-32)
You can find probably dozens more.
Huge stretches of the book are internal monologue or whispered conversations in dark rooms, where two people exchange few words and pages are spent on exposition. The book is unfilmable; or rather, you can make a lot of movies with the title Dune but they're going to end up just sharing character names and the general bag of situations.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.