Why Dune?

In today's brain-dump I'm going to spoil a lot of the epic story of Dune, so if you want to see the upcoming film-adaptation from director Denis Villeneuve without knowing anything about it, you might want to skip this post. On the other hand, this story is so complicated, has so many layers and touches on so many aspects of the human experience, that it may be beneficial to know a little bit about it before going to see it on the largest screen you can find...

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The first reviews are in, and what they all agree upon is that this film has to be seen on the big screen, preferably in IMAX; so ignore the HBO release and see it at the cinema. I for one am glad that the film seems to do justice to the epic scope and galactic scale of Frank Herbert's 1965 original story. Also I'm glad that I'm intimately familiar with all of the 6 books of Herbert's original series when I'm going to see the film sometime during the next few weeks (15 September is the release date here in Europe, Americans will have to wait until 22 October). Regardless of how much faith I have in Villeneuve doing the essence of the story justice, it's impossible to translate everything in the books to the big screen. Maybe if his wish to make a trilogy, spanning the first two books, is granted, and if there's an accompanying series published, it'll be possible to tell Paul Atreides' story the way Frank Herbert intended it. But I'll get on with the purpose of this post, which is to explain why you should read Dune.

If you're a fan of science fiction, you owe it to yourself to read Dune. It's been said many times, and I agree completely, that Dune is for science fiction what The Lord of the Ring is for fantasy; many science fiction and fantasy epics are heavily influenced by Dune, like Star Wars, The Wheel of Time, Game of Thrones and many, many others. But that's not even the main reason why I believe reading Dune is kind of essential. The real reason why reading Dune should be on everyone's to-do-list is that Frank Herbert tells the story of humanity through this epic saga. He tells of human evolution, how that evolution is influenced by the environment en how humans in turn influence the environment, and so on. He explains how human societies are organized as a function of the way they've evolved, and he does this with consideration for everything that defines humanity as we know it; politics, history, economics, ecology, psychology, philosophy, religion, prophecies... everything you can think of is in there. And it's not just evolution of humankind, but of individuals as well; the first book is a traditional coming-of-age story as we follow Paul Atreides, the son of Duke Atreides and Lady Jessica, growing up and preparing to take on his duties as his father's successor.

Paul is a special child though. His mother Jessica is a member of an ancient sect of highly talented, almost magical females called the Bene Gesserit. This sect is effectively ruling the universe by way of manipulating blood-lines, arranging marriages between members of the ruling houses and their own. When the story starts, the Bene Gesserit are almost ready to reap the fruits of a thousands year old genetic breeding program, and Lady Jessica should have been the one to produce a daughter with Duke Leto Atreides; that daughter could then be married to a son of house Harkonnen, the sworn enemies of house Atreides. That would have served two goals: the centuries old feud between the houses would be settled, and from that bond a son would be produced. That son would be the Bene Gesserit's long awaited price: the Kwisatz Haderach, a male Bene Gesserit who would be able to lead humanity into the future as foreseen and wished by the ancient sect of females.

However, Lady Jessica has betrayed the Bene Gesserit. Her love for Duke Leto Atreides was greater than her sense of duty to her sect, and she gave birth to the son he wished for. That son is Paul, and Jessica teaches him in the ways of the Bene Gesserit. In the very first chapter of the book, the leader of the Bene Gesserit visits Lady Jessica on her home planet Caladan to test Paul. They suspect that maybe, even if he was born one generation too soon, Paul can be the Kwisatz Haderach. The first book is about Paul and Jessica mainly, but their story is set against an epic background of the feud between house Harkonnen, who are in league with the Emperor, and house Atreides. All the Great Houses have a seat in the Landsraad, who are hierarchically placed directly beneath the Emperor. In fact there's a third faction, CHOAM, which can be loosely compared to OPEC and essentially controls all economic affairs in the universe of Dune. However, CHOAM, as well as everyone else relies on the Spacing Guild for all transport across the universe due to their monopoly on faster than light space travel. All of these together, the Emperor, the Great Houses of the Landsraad and CHOAM form the universe's balance of power, with the Bene Gesserit acting as a shadow government influencing them all through their secretive manipulations in the background.

If there's an equivalent of OPEC in the story, there must be an equivalent for oil as well. Everything in the Dune universe is powered by the spice Melange. This spice has many uses; it prolongs human life, it opens up the mind, especially when used by certain human factions, and without it, faster than light space travel is impossible. Dune starts in the year 10191 AG, where "AG" stands for "After Guild" which means 10191 years after the formation of the Spacing Guild and CHOAM. Before that, in the year 200 BG (Before Guild), humans started an all-out war against the "thinking machines", the Butlerian Jihad, in which eventually all AI is eradicated. In Dune's first chapter this war is referenced, and we learn why it's forbidden in the Dune universe to make thinking machines. This abolition of computers and AI forced humanity to develop certain mental skills, and different factions evolved into specialized "super humans" over the course of thousands of years. There are Mentats, human computers and strategists; every Great House employs a mentat. Then there's the Spacing Guild who have evolved, also because of their copious use of spice, into creatures that are hardly recognizable as humans, and are capable of making complicated calculations and using a limited form of prescience to plot courses through spacetime, which makes possible faster than light space travel. And there's the Bene Gesserit of course who have many talents like using their voice to manipulate and control people, and preserving the memories of all previous generations of Bene Gesserit, but only on the maternal side. Jessica recognizes, for example, some of the ancient languages used on the desert planet Arrakis, also known as Dune, because of her Bene Gesserit training. What's important to know, is that they all need the spice Melange to boost their evolved talents, and that Dune is the only planet where spice can be found and harvested.

The Emperor is in League with House Harkonnen because he sees Duke Leto Atreides as a threat to his throne. Leto is very popular among the members of the Landsraad, and is described as a genuine benevolent leader in the book who's also beloved among his people on Caladan. Caladan is a lush planet with lots of water, vegetation and fauna, and house Atreides has ruled there benevolently for thousands of years. When the story begins, house Atreides is tasked by the Emperor to manage the spice-harvesting on Dune, a task that has been carried out by House Harkonnen for decades. But Leto isn't a fool, and he senses that when something looks too good to be true... it's probably a trap. Still he accepts and he and his entire family hop on a Spacing Guild Heighliner, a monstrously big ship on which travelers can park their own space ships, that's piloted by a Guild Navigator and can traverse vast interstellar distances in an instant. And when the Atreides family lands on Dune, the story really begins and we dive into the politics, the ecology, the philosophy, prophecy and religion of it all. I'll end this introduction to the world of Dune by saying that Paul Atreides is forced to forge a bond with Dune's indigenous people, the Fremen, and that he and his mother make use of prophecies that were deliberately planted by the Bene Gesserit thousands of years ago to have the Fremen accept Paul as their savior.

A critique I've often seen of Dune, even in the first reviews of Villeneuve's film, is that the story relies on the "white savior" trope. And if you've read the above it should be clear that this is an easy mistake to make. But let me assure you that is is a mistake. To know that, you need to read the second book, "Dune Messiah", in which Paul's failure becomes even more apparent. I say "even more" because this is revealed in the second half of the first book as well; Paul Atreides becomes the foretold messiah Paul Muad'Dib who will be responsible for billions of deaths across the universe as his people wage a Jihad in His name. You see, Frank Herbert told this deeply philosophical saga with a very specific goal in mind; he wanted to warn readers of the dangers of following charismatic leaders, the leaders he saw rise in the years leading up to the Second World War. This story is so rich and so beautifully told, yet it is grounded in a thorough understanding of what makes humans and humanity as a whole tick. It changed my life forever, my view on politics, history, religion and philosophy was changed forever. Especially the fourth book, when Paul's descendant becomes something that's as close to a God as humanly possible and reigns over the entire universe for 4000 years, will forever change how you think about our young species. That book is told mainly from the perspective of that God-creature, one that doesn't care about what happens tomorrow, but what happens tens of thousands of years into humanity's future. Like I said; the scale and scope of this story is humongous and can't really be done justice in film-format. Read the books; there's still time to finish at least the first one before the movie premieres...

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