NP: Dune again, white dudes-- and others. Not Others.

[Mark Kohut]

Despite winning the first Hugo and Nebula Award (can't remember which was
new then) and also winning the other that year which was already in
existence, *Dune* was not
a publishing success at first. Giving support to Joseph's observations
about it 'originally'. Not an easy book and no company with
resources behind it, it built slowly, starting mostly with the paperback
of course, but Asimov and Clarke and Heinlein and others were still
outselling it by leagues....But word-of-mouth built the cult although Frank
Herbert
did not quit his day job until the seventies [Dune hc was 1965]. His first
NYT bestseller was the third in the series.
Just like Jane Austen. Just like *Hamlet*. Just like* Moby Dick*, he says
seriously but jokingly.

On Wed, Oct 27, 2021 at 10:51 AM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> Great article. Saying similar things myself but I was less articulate,
> less filled out than this.I sense we are in basic agreement that Herbert’s
> intentions as a writer got subverted by 2 things:1) too much attention to
> the machiavellian  maneuverings of the Empire,House Atraides  and the
> godlike messianic powers of Paul A,  with little serious development or
> nuance or internal divisions in the Fremen culture. and 2) too binary a
> conflict (messiahs lead to wars- really what about buddhism) with no 3rd
> option. As I said earlier I think killing the ecologist off was a big
> mistake as he could have represented a 3rd way. War is never ecologically
> friendly, and future heavens are piss poor substitutes for milk and honey
> now.
>
> I do not think the original reception of Dune was as nuanced or
> provocative as Herbert intended. I think a lot of the novel’s popularity
> revolved around fantasies of revenge against imperial violence toward
> justice and the earth, and the idea that psychedelics might be a liberating
> force that would free individuals and society to a higher destiny.
> The dark side of messianic powers was not what I remember people talking
> about, and in fact this was a heyday of Jesus People and other cults.
>
> There is an appeal of being at the center of a great mystery hinging on
> your personal destiny that is seductive to the ego and dangerous , just as
> there is an appeal to disappearing safely into the peace of enlightened
> non-attachment that can be more like asleep than awake. Is there at least a
> 3rd way?
>
>
> > On Oct 27, 2021, at 9:28 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> https://slate.com/culture/2021/10/dune-2021-movie-vs-book-white-savior-islam.html
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
>
>
>
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