| Contact Ted Gioia at tedgioia@hotmail.com Visit his web site at www.tedgioia.com Great Books Guide is an Amazon.com associate Visit Blogcritics |
OTHER ARTICLES OF NOTE
FROM GREAT BOOKS GUIDE
Exhuming Robert Musil: A
Fresh Look at The Man Without
Qualities
The Fourteen Skies of Michael
Chabon
Life After Potter
The Nobel Prize in Literature
from an Alternative Universe
Hamlet Wore Ladies
Underwear (and other literary
secrets outed)
FROM GREAT BOOKS GUIDE
Exhuming Robert Musil: A
Fresh Look at The Man Without
Qualities
The Fourteen Skies of Michael
Chabon
Life After Potter
The Nobel Prize in Literature
from an Alternative Universe
Hamlet Wore Ladies
Underwear (and other literary
secrets outed)
Great Books Guide
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Dune
by Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert's popular novel has never been
accepted by serious critics. Yet it is one of the
finest fictional examples of what anthropologist
Clifford Geertz has called "thick description"
narratives. Is it time to give this book its due?
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
At first blush, writing a novel that takes place on another planet
seems like an easier proposition than, say, creating a historical
fiction set during the Victorian era. The author of the historical
novel must get the costumes and settings
right, avoid anachronisms, make sure the
language is idiomatic, and never violate
our understanding of how things really
were during the period in question. And
we haven’t even begun to consider matters
of plot, character development, etc.
The sci-fi writer, in contrast, can just make
it all up. Mermaids, flying buildings, the
proverbial bottomless cup of coffee . . .
anything goes, as Cole Porter once said.
What could be easier than that?
Yet when we encounter a book such as
Dune, it becomes clear that imagining a
whole new world is, in fact, a project on a grand scale.
Anthropologists sometimes talk about “thin” and “thick”
descriptions of cultures—a terminology originated by Clifford
Geertz, but now borrowed by other fields. The “thin description”
may describe a certain aspect of a social situation, but lacks the
rich contextual information that only the “thick” account can
convey. Frank Herbert’s Dune is the novelistic equivalent of the
“thick” ethnography—indeed, almost a textbook case of what such
a "thick" narrative looks like.
Related articles:
Robert Heinlein at 100
Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness
Philip K. Dick's Four Novels of the 1960s
Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz
Isaac Asimov's The Foundation Trilogy
Stanislaw Lem's His Master's Voice
William Gibson's Burning Chrome
And what Herbert achieves is all the more striking, given that so
much sci-fi is woefully thin. It is one thing to postulate the
existence of intelligent life in another part of the universe, it is a
much different (and more challenging) task to situate this alien
culture in a rich world, fully equipped with distinctive flora, fauna,
ecology, traditions, institutions, religious beliefs, ancestral
conflicts, technologies, myths and other cultural bric-a-brac. The
richness of this contextual framework is what typically sets the
finer works of speculative fiction apart from the rest.
Only a few authors have achieved this at a very high degree.
Herbert belongs in that select group that includes J.R.R. Tolkien
(and his Middle-earth), C.S. Lewis (and Narnia) and J.K. Rowling
(and her magical variant of modern-day Britain). It should come
to no surprise that each of these authors ranks among the most
popular writers of the last century, and has attracted a notoriously
loyal group of fans. Even if “serious” literary critics fail to
recognize the achievement of creating the “thick” description of
an alternative world from scratch, millions of readers clearly
appreciate the “degree of difficulty” involved. If fiction were
diving, creating a realistic Dune would be the equivalent of a
backward double somersault with two-and-a-half twists.
I realize full well that I am fighting against the literary
establishment here. For them, a work such as Dune—whether they
have read it or not (mostly the latter, let’s be honest)—exists
simply to be derided and dismissed. Its popularity and ardent fan
base, far from adding to the book’s credibility, only serve to make
it all the more suspect. I probably fell, unthinkingly, into this same
camp, until my strange mid-life crisis as a reader set in, which led
me to immerse myself in the disdained classics of conceptual
fiction—books, let me assure you, I had not read as a teenager.
Nostalgia for my youth, a sentiment that sometimes flares up
when I listen to the oldies station on the radio, plays no part in my
championing of these works. Yes, I admit it, I didn't read Herbert,
Asimov, Heinlein, Dick, etc. until I had a few gray hairs.
The plot of Dune is your typical jumble of stock situations and
narrative archetypes. The novel is set primarily on the desert
planet Arrakis, a barren wasteland which would be worthless
except that it is the source of the valuable spice mélange, known
for its ability to prolong life, as well as enhance vitality and
alertness. Duke Leto Atreides I has brought his family to Arrakis,
where he will take over the valuable spice trade. But this gift is
actually a trap hatched by his enemies, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
and Emperor Shaddam IV. Although the Duke has a powerful and
loyal entourage, the battle for survival on this inhospitable planet
will ultimately depend on his concubine Lady Jessica and
especially his son Paul.
The plot, as summarized here, is straightforward and little
different from what we might find in hundreds of pulp fiction
novels. Yet what distinguishes Dune from your run of the mill
adventure story is the rich tapestry that Herbert weaves around
his plot, and his ability to address big themes—ranging from
ecology to religion—without being heavy-handed. In fact, those
who believe that books set on distant planets are mere escapism,
without serious thematic content and the "deep inner meaning" of
more serious novels, might be surprised by what they find inside
the covers of Dune.
To some extent, Herbert never really extricated himself from this
story—although he wrote books about other subjects, he kept
coming back to the scene of his greatest triumph. Sequels are a
curse of the creative mind. We often find that the very imaginative
souls best capable of forging a richly conceived fictional world are
least able to leave it behind and move on to other projects. One is
again reminded inevitably of Narnia, Middle-earth and Hogwarts.
In the cases of Tolkien and Herbert, their sons even stepped in to
keep the wheels turning in the imaginative universes left behind by
their illustrious fathers.
Although Dune has become an acknowledged classic within the sci-
fi world, this thick-description novel was slow in finding an
audience. Close to twenty publishers rejected the novel (although
one reportedly noted that this might be the “mistake of the
decade”), and Herbert was eventually forced to cut a deal with
Chilton, an imprint best known for its auto manuals. Sales were
slow at first—even though the book won both the Hugo and
Nebula awards. Many readers were no doubt put off by the sheer
size of the work, and by the fact that they needed to consult a
lengthy glossary at the back of the book if they hoped to
understand the fictive landscape that Herbert had created for
their delectation. In short, Dune hovered on the brink of
becoming one of those heinous “two bookmark novels,” such as
David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale
Fire, in which the reader must dance back and forth in the text.
Yet the enthusiasm of those who made the plunge into Dune
eventually overcame all of these obstacles. Again like Rowling
(turned down by nine publishers), Herbert demonstrated that his
grandiosity of vision was only a flaw in the minds of those who
proved unable to rise to the occasion. For the readers who gave
themselves up to the world of Dune—and this is unmistakably one
of those books that you must give yourself up to, or you might as
well not read it at all—the supposedly extraneous trappings of the
author’s “thick” description were the best part of the story.
This book continues to find a receptive audience, and reward
those who make the effort to master its intricacies. It has even
survived a poorly received David Lynch film and a lackluster TV
movie—and, needless to say, the scorn of the literati. Yet the high
culture snobs who look down on this book would perhaps do well
to spend some time immersed in its pages. They might just learn
something about the possibilities of “thick” descriptions in
literature that they won’t find in the other books on their
nightstand.
This article was originally published on Blogcritics.
by Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert's popular novel has never been
accepted by serious critics. Yet it is one of the
finest fictional examples of what anthropologist
Clifford Geertz has called "thick description"
narratives. Is it time to give this book its due?
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
At first blush, writing a novel that takes place on another planet
seems like an easier proposition than, say, creating a historical
fiction set during the Victorian era. The author of the historical
novel must get the costumes and settings
right, avoid anachronisms, make sure the
language is idiomatic, and never violate
our understanding of how things really
were during the period in question. And
we haven’t even begun to consider matters
of plot, character development, etc.
The sci-fi writer, in contrast, can just make
it all up. Mermaids, flying buildings, the
proverbial bottomless cup of coffee . . .
anything goes, as Cole Porter once said.
What could be easier than that?
Yet when we encounter a book such as
Dune, it becomes clear that imagining a
whole new world is, in fact, a project on a grand scale.
Anthropologists sometimes talk about “thin” and “thick”
descriptions of cultures—a terminology originated by Clifford
Geertz, but now borrowed by other fields. The “thin description”
may describe a certain aspect of a social situation, but lacks the
rich contextual information that only the “thick” account can
convey. Frank Herbert’s Dune is the novelistic equivalent of the
“thick” ethnography—indeed, almost a textbook case of what such
a "thick" narrative looks like.
Related articles:
Robert Heinlein at 100
Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness
Philip K. Dick's Four Novels of the 1960s
Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz
Isaac Asimov's The Foundation Trilogy
Stanislaw Lem's His Master's Voice
William Gibson's Burning Chrome
And what Herbert achieves is all the more striking, given that so
much sci-fi is woefully thin. It is one thing to postulate the
existence of intelligent life in another part of the universe, it is a
much different (and more challenging) task to situate this alien
culture in a rich world, fully equipped with distinctive flora, fauna,
ecology, traditions, institutions, religious beliefs, ancestral
conflicts, technologies, myths and other cultural bric-a-brac. The
richness of this contextual framework is what typically sets the
finer works of speculative fiction apart from the rest.
Only a few authors have achieved this at a very high degree.
Herbert belongs in that select group that includes J.R.R. Tolkien
(and his Middle-earth), C.S. Lewis (and Narnia) and J.K. Rowling
(and her magical variant of modern-day Britain). It should come
to no surprise that each of these authors ranks among the most
popular writers of the last century, and has attracted a notoriously
loyal group of fans. Even if “serious” literary critics fail to
recognize the achievement of creating the “thick” description of
an alternative world from scratch, millions of readers clearly
appreciate the “degree of difficulty” involved. If fiction were
diving, creating a realistic Dune would be the equivalent of a
backward double somersault with two-and-a-half twists.
I realize full well that I am fighting against the literary
establishment here. For them, a work such as Dune—whether they
have read it or not (mostly the latter, let’s be honest)—exists
simply to be derided and dismissed. Its popularity and ardent fan
base, far from adding to the book’s credibility, only serve to make
it all the more suspect. I probably fell, unthinkingly, into this same
camp, until my strange mid-life crisis as a reader set in, which led
me to immerse myself in the disdained classics of conceptual
fiction—books, let me assure you, I had not read as a teenager.
Nostalgia for my youth, a sentiment that sometimes flares up
when I listen to the oldies station on the radio, plays no part in my
championing of these works. Yes, I admit it, I didn't read Herbert,
Asimov, Heinlein, Dick, etc. until I had a few gray hairs.
The plot of Dune is your typical jumble of stock situations and
narrative archetypes. The novel is set primarily on the desert
planet Arrakis, a barren wasteland which would be worthless
except that it is the source of the valuable spice mélange, known
for its ability to prolong life, as well as enhance vitality and
alertness. Duke Leto Atreides I has brought his family to Arrakis,
where he will take over the valuable spice trade. But this gift is
actually a trap hatched by his enemies, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
and Emperor Shaddam IV. Although the Duke has a powerful and
loyal entourage, the battle for survival on this inhospitable planet
will ultimately depend on his concubine Lady Jessica and
especially his son Paul.
The plot, as summarized here, is straightforward and little
different from what we might find in hundreds of pulp fiction
novels. Yet what distinguishes Dune from your run of the mill
adventure story is the rich tapestry that Herbert weaves around
his plot, and his ability to address big themes—ranging from
ecology to religion—without being heavy-handed. In fact, those
who believe that books set on distant planets are mere escapism,
without serious thematic content and the "deep inner meaning" of
more serious novels, might be surprised by what they find inside
the covers of Dune.
To some extent, Herbert never really extricated himself from this
story—although he wrote books about other subjects, he kept
coming back to the scene of his greatest triumph. Sequels are a
curse of the creative mind. We often find that the very imaginative
souls best capable of forging a richly conceived fictional world are
least able to leave it behind and move on to other projects. One is
again reminded inevitably of Narnia, Middle-earth and Hogwarts.
In the cases of Tolkien and Herbert, their sons even stepped in to
keep the wheels turning in the imaginative universes left behind by
their illustrious fathers.
Although Dune has become an acknowledged classic within the sci-
fi world, this thick-description novel was slow in finding an
audience. Close to twenty publishers rejected the novel (although
one reportedly noted that this might be the “mistake of the
decade”), and Herbert was eventually forced to cut a deal with
Chilton, an imprint best known for its auto manuals. Sales were
slow at first—even though the book won both the Hugo and
Nebula awards. Many readers were no doubt put off by the sheer
size of the work, and by the fact that they needed to consult a
lengthy glossary at the back of the book if they hoped to
understand the fictive landscape that Herbert had created for
their delectation. In short, Dune hovered on the brink of
becoming one of those heinous “two bookmark novels,” such as
David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale
Fire, in which the reader must dance back and forth in the text.
Yet the enthusiasm of those who made the plunge into Dune
eventually overcame all of these obstacles. Again like Rowling
(turned down by nine publishers), Herbert demonstrated that his
grandiosity of vision was only a flaw in the minds of those who
proved unable to rise to the occasion. For the readers who gave
themselves up to the world of Dune—and this is unmistakably one
of those books that you must give yourself up to, or you might as
well not read it at all—the supposedly extraneous trappings of the
author’s “thick” description were the best part of the story.
This book continues to find a receptive audience, and reward
those who make the effort to master its intricacies. It has even
survived a poorly received David Lynch film and a lackluster TV
movie—and, needless to say, the scorn of the literati. Yet the high
culture snobs who look down on this book would perhaps do well
to spend some time immersed in its pages. They might just learn
something about the possibilities of “thick” descriptions in
literature that they won’t find in the other books on their
nightstand.
This article was originally published on Blogcritics.
