DUNE: the half-way report

Yesterday I reached, and today I passed, the halfway point in Dune, Frank Herbert's 1965 science fiction novel. My son gave this to me for Christmas (or birthday; they're pretty close together), and about three weeks ago it finally came to the top of the pile. My son gave it a good endorsement, saying it helped to define, or maybe it was change, the science fiction genre. I'm not much of a science fiction or fantasy person, but with that endorsement, and trying to please him, when it came to the top and it was time to read fiction, I plunged.

The first fifty pages were very hard reading. So many terms to learn, so many flips to the glossary. So much going back to re-read paragraphs that didn't seem to make sense. Actually, this went on for closer to a hundred pages (my version is 540 pages, including appendixes). I found myself unable to read more than five to ten pages a day.

After a while, though, I fell into a rhythm, and began to find the work enjoyable. Some terms started to become familiar; others could be deciphered from context. The main plot line became clear, and the characters became real. The writing is stellar, and this book has one thing I really like in a book: omniscient narrator point of view. In all my writing instruction sources, they say omniscient is out of favor, and new writers should avoid it. As a reader, however, I prefer it, so why wouldn't I write in it? Tonight I finished a chapter where Paul and his mother are the only characters in the scene. In one paragraph we are in Paul's head; in the next one in Jessica's. And I say, "Hallelujah!" What an exciting way to write. The caution against head hopping is, IMHO, way over stated.

Back to Dune, I can't imagine how much time it took Herbert to create this. It seems more fantasy to me than science fiction. Possibly these two genres frequently merge when the science fiction is so far out there to make Earth invisible. His creation of the desert situations--the sand worms and the Fremen and stillsuits and the whole concept about water conservation is outstanding. The empire, with the tripartite arrangement between the royal house and the guild and the leading families, which has barely come out, is an interesting foundation of the plot. Back story is worked in expertly by Herbert.

I'm on a roll now, reading twenty pages a day or a few more. I'm anxious to learn how Paul and Jessica return to civilization; how Thufir Hawat learns who the real traitor is; what the emperor's gambit is; etc. A few things I question, but imagine they will be explained later. For example, the last chapter I read this evening told of the death of Kynes, the Fremen planetologist who served as the judge of the change. Given that he died, and will have no more part in the story (unless he really didn't die; we don't have a corpus delecti yet, and I always maintain until you have the corpus delecti you don't have a death), why did Herbert spend so much time on the death? Was it just to work in some of Arrakis' physical characteristics, which Paul will pick up on later in this (or a subsequent) volume? The weeks ahead will tell.