“A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows. To begin your study of the life of Muad’Dib, then take care that you first place him in his time: born in the 57th year of the Padishah Emperor, Shaddam IV. And take the most special care that you locate Muad’Dib in his place: the planet Arrakis. Do not be deceived by the fact that he was born on Caladan and lived his first fifteen years there. Arrakis, the planet known as Dune, is forever his place.”
~from Manual of Muad’Dib by the Princess Irulan
Dune.
Like Ahab’s whale this heralded science fiction classic has eluded me for years. Looked at more honestly I am Moby Dick, and thanks to the assistance of a crew of fellow readers, Dune has finally landed me.
The first week of July has passed and with it our group reading of the first part (Book 1: Dune) of Herbert’s classic. It was my honor to ask the questions for this first section, my answers of which you will find after the jump. For those either not participating in the group read or those who have not yet completed this first section, I will warn you that the answers to the following questions will most likely contain spoilers.
If any of you have read Dune but are not participating in the group read, please feel free to answer any or all of these questions either in the comments here on my site or on the site of any of the other participants. At the end of this post you will find links to the Q&A posts of the other participants.
I would ask that you do not reveal anything that happens later in the book, past this first section, as several of us have not read the book before. Thank you.
If for some reason you get behind in the reading, please keep on going at your pace and answer the questions when you can.
Okay, here we go:
1. What, if any, preconceived ideas did you have before you started reading Dune and how has the first section measured up to those preconceptions?
(Alternate Question for those who’ve read the book: Did you see anything in this first section of the book that either you hadn’t seen before or that you had forgotten about, anything that stood out to you?
I was not able to enter Dune as a blank canvas. A half dozen or more viewings of David Lynch’s adaptation have certainly left their mark. I prepared to spend much of the book comparing it in my head to the film (which has and will continue to happen), but I was unprepared for how easy it was for Frank Herbert to drive those visions out of the front row of my memories. He did it by telling me right at the beginning that Paul Atreides was 15 years old. Kyle MacLachlan is a far cry from 15 in his portrayal of Paul and thus it was most easy to dismiss that vision of Paul and adopt one from my imagination based on the words of Frank Herbert.
The other preconception I had was that by knowing the story I would somehow be tainted in my view of Herbert’s work. I need not have been concerned. Even with all the “I know what is going to happen next” moments I found a great deal of entertaining writing that filled in gaps and went in directions that I did not expect.
2. What did you think about the plot device of the early revelation that Yueh was to be the traitor?
I found myself going back and forth on this one. I knew that Yueh was the traitor because of my exposure to the film, yet I was surprised at how early in the novel it was revealed to the reader. My initial thoughts were that it didn’t work for me, but then when accusations against the Lady Jessica began to mount and Duke Leto decided to play along with that in hopes of drawing out the traitor, I found that entire ill-fated intrigue and subterfuge to be agonizingly suspenseful. Knowing the story, I knew the doom that awaited them, but it did not take away from the impact that part of the story had on me as I read it.
I have to give props to Herbert for having me at the point (several times) where it was all I could do to not step into the book and give Jessica or Leto or Hawat a good shaking and yell, “Open your eyes! Its obvious! He’s right there!!!”
3. What was your favorite part of this first section? Which character(s) do you find most interesting and why?
The dinner scene was the bomb! Watching the verbal sparring between Duke Leto, Paul Atreides, Lady Jessica and the various guests was highly entertaining. The Atreides family shows their intelligence and cunning in this scene. I was drawn into this part of the book in such a way that it was almost as if a film took over and the scene played out visually before me.
Time and again in this first section the wisdom of Paul Atreides takes people by surprise, giving some even more reason to believe that the prophecies are true and that Paul may be the culmination of those long held beliefs. I enjoy the way in which Herbert uses those prophecies and the Bene Gesserit ways to build a web of intrigue and mystery around Paul and also around his mother Jessica.
Paul is certainly a favorite character. I found myself really liking Kynes a lot. The various interactions with Kynes were page turners for me.
4. Did the revelation about the Harkonnen surprise you?
I probably wasn’t very clear with this question as what I meant specifically was the revelation that Lady Jessica was the child of Baron Harkonnen. That surprised the heck out of me and potentially sets up some interesting story lines in the rest of the book. The other thing that surprised me about the Harkonnen, the Baron in particular, was that even though he is not described as nor act as openly disgusting as he does in the David Lynch film, he was every bit as creepy and sinister and off-putting as he is in the film. His depravity is every bit as present but even more diabolical because it is just hinted at (much of it takes place off-stage, as it were) and not as in your face as the film depiction.
5. Finally, please share some overall thoughts on this first section of the book. Are you finding it difficult to follow? Easy to understand? Engaging? Boring? Just share what you are thinking thus far.
The first third of Dune has convinced me that very soon those who feel the need to say “I told you so” will be able to do so and I will gladly take it. I read the first 100 pages in snatches here and there during the week and then read the second 100 pages in one thrilling gulp.
I am enjoying the structure of Herbert’s story–the brief “chapters” headed by selections from various works of the Princess Irulan. Not only does it set up the section to follow and provide a little foresight, but it gives the reader tiny glimpses at this mysterious Princess character.
I know there is much more excitement to come, especially after the events which closed this first section. I hope you are all enjoying it as well.
I would love it if you would leave a link to your post here below so that I and others can come visit you.
Remember, next week will be Little Red Reviewer’s turn to send out questions. They will arrive by Thursday, July 14th at the latest. Thanks, hope everyone is having fun! Look forward to reading your posts on Saturday.
I feel quite bad as I did not enjoy it all that much. I think he uses much too much dialogue. I have never seen the movie or only parts of it, so there was no canvas to fill the gaps the story telling left in my imagination. Whenever there were descriptions I loved them and I find a lot mysterious and fascinating. I will go on reading anyway and am glad I’m reading it but it is, until now, not exactly to my liking.
There’s no reason to feel bad, Caroline. We all have different tastes. I hadn’t really thought about it, but I guess there is a lot of dialogue. I actually like it, especially the internal dialogue that the characters have with themselves. I’m glad you are going to continue on with us despite it not being what you were hoping for. I’ll be over to read your answers, thanks for leaving the link.
The track back from Schönheit ist eine schlafende Katze is from my German blog, should you wonder.
I did wonder but when I went to the blog I was able to figure it out.
Barely. 🙂
Yeah, I am not done the first section yet, so my post won’t be up until a bit later today… I am having a hard time getting caught up in the story, to be honest. I will be back when I finished, though, to properly read your post!
Like I said in my tweet to you, Caroline is as well and she answered in a non-spoiler way so you might want to read her post.
I have read her post and it is a lot of the same problems I am having with the book. My post is finally up, though. Yay!
I will be posting later tonight. I need to finish writing it and will be away today at a family reunion(a less intense meal than the Atreides). So far I am enjoying it as much as the first time I read it.
Glad to hear it Jim and look forward to reading your thoughts, especially since you are one who has read it previously.
Caroline – I too was surprised at the quantity of dialog, I didn’t remember there being so much, but I didn’t mind it. I felt the dialog helped move the story along, build up characterization, and introduce characters as well as cultures and help w/some world building as well.
For anyone whose not sure if Dune is their thing, I do hope you keep going with it. The book takes a drastic turn for the cool in the middle section.
Redhead: It is funny how you notice or don’t notice things when you are reading. Until Caroline mentioned it I hadn’t even realized the book was more dialogue-heavy. Of course now I’ll be really conscious of that in this next section. 🙂
I’m looking forward even more now to the second section.
I actually prefer world building to be done by dialogue and character interaction as opposed to long stretches where the author is telling me about the world. Of course there are always exceptions to that with particular authors whose descriptions are thrilling.
I think he relies too much on dialogue but hearing that there are cool things to come will keep me going. I think it would have been more sophisticated to switch to indirect speech occasionally, a chnage in pace. For me it was too much of the same and the form started to overshadow the content. Like when someone speaks and stammers. No matter how fascinating the topic, after a while I will only hear the stammer.
I thought there was too much dialogue, too. I kept waiting for something to happen!
Btw, I started a twitter hashtag – #dunereadalong
Thanks for doing that! 🙂
Hi Carl! I loved the dinner party as well. You could almost taste the tension. I’m curious what you like about Paul. I think he is fascinating and want to learn more about him, but I am having a hard time liking him. I can’t put my finger on it.
TBM: Well I liked Paul from the movies and I know the basic outline of what will happen to/with him, so I already liked him. But what I particularly liked about him in the book is that the book gives you more opportunity to see the lessons that he has been taught for years finally all fall into place. He comes off as wise beyond his years because of what he has been taught by his mother, the Mentat preparation of which he was initially unaware, etc.
Circumstances are rapidly causing him to have to ‘grow up’ and I like seeing him confound his enemies with his wisdom and grasp of the situation, thus engendering loyalty in people like Kynes, for example.
Without spoiling what is to come I will say that I just like seeing the seeds of Paul’s future starting to grow.
I agree that there was a lot of tension created in wanting them to open their eyes and see who the traitor was. They seemed so savvy about everything else! I didn’t mention it in my post, but Kynes is a pretty intriguing character. He’s obviously very powerful, and there’s a lot we don’t know about him. I love his reactions as he forms opinions about the other characters, and their reactions to him. The Baron is just sickeningly evil, drat that the poison didn’t get to him!
Kynes is great! He is played in the David Lynch film by Max von Sydow and I did picture him as I was reading it. I think he was perfectly cast. The film just skims the surface of who he is and it was a great pleasure to see this character fleshed out to a greater degree. I enjoyed watching his initial hostility towards the Duke and the Atreides family start to waiver as he saw their honorable side and as he began to believe that they might be the answer to the prophecies.
The Baron. Even though I knew the poison wouldn’t kill him I still found myself hoping that some miracle would happen in the book and Duke Leto would somehow succeed this time! 🙂
Excellent post! Mine’s up now; it’s late because I didn’t have internet this weekend.
I’m really loving Dune, and the readalong was a great idea. I really liked Kynes as well. He seems like the sort of character who takes a long time to like/trust someone, and I enjoyed reading about him, especially in the dinner scene.
I already finished the book; I got toward the end of part one and couldn’t put it down until I was done. One of the nice things about being a grown-up is that people don’t get mad at you when you decide to stay up until some ungodly hour to finish a book. 😀
No worries about it being late, Grace. Sorry about the internet being down. That is always annoying.
You’ve already tore through whole thing already?!?! Awesome! I came close to plowing on ahead but decided I wanted to try to ‘be good’ and read it in the time frames. We’ll see if I can stick to that. LOL!
I glad you are all enjoying this reading process and each posting your reactions to the book.
It strikes me that this has become, or the group read was from the outset, a somewhat academic classroom-like undertaking. I can just hear the teacher (in college the Professor) telling the class to read these chapters and be prepared to discuss certain aspects of them next time. Oh boy. For me that strips the enjoyment from the reading process, similar to reading a book with the intention of writing a review.
Close analysis while reading doesn’t allow for nearly as much enjoyment as just immersing in the book and coming up for air to have a snack, take a walk or whatever. If the author tells the story with dialogue, fine. If it’s descriptive passages, fine. Either way my imagination is guided enough to let me see for myself what I’m being shown, as opposed to a film. The points you make, Carl, about the Baron on screen vs. in the book is one of the reasons I really did not like that film.
And look at you, you’re constantly comparing the two, instead of just reading and accepting the book and FORGETTING the film, how it looks, how it portrays things, etc. I suspect you won’t be able to do that, and I think your reading experience of Dune will be the poorer for it. Still it seems you are enjoying the book some, and that’s good.
RkR: I looked at what others had done with these group reads in the past and thought we were probably better off having some kind of structure. Without one I think those who ‘get behind’ miss out on the conversational nature of the group read.
Plus I think you might be confusing things. We aren’t posting the questions “before” the section we are reading. Everyone is just reading for the enjoyment of it and the questions are posted at the end of the week. So the reading isn’t done analytically (other than the knowledge that you are going to be asked to join in a discussion), it is just reading for fun and then having someone (me for this week) lead a group discussion after the fact. No one knew what the questions would be before they started reading the first section, just like none of us know what Little Red is going to be asking in the second section. We won’t know that until Thursday by which time we should be through that section of the book. Having the questions ahead of time would not only spoil the fun but would create just the kind of situation you describe, one where you aren’t reading for the immersion into the story but are instead reading for specific content.
I’m not entirely sure my experience is poorer or richer for the films. In reading the confusion some folks had and the need to access the glossary, I am glad I had the film version in my head because there were no moments of wondering “how is that pronounced?” or “who was that character again?”. I actually think I’ve benefited some by knowing these things. Plus I really enjoy film to book comparisons anyway, so that is something I do naturally. I wouldn’t have to do so, but then I wouldn’t be me! 🙂
And yes, the book is fun. But honestly I had no worries that I wouldn’t enjoy it because of the fact that I like Lynch’s adaptation, dated-ness, warts and all. I knew that, like my experience with LOTR, the books would end up filling in details and increasing my appreciation of the story, which is exactly what is happening. (not that I’m comparing the two, because the LOTR films are masterpieces and the Dune film is an eccentric and odd SFF that I happen to like the way I like certain ‘cult classic’ films.).
I actually like the question method. This is my first group read on line and I wasn’t sure how it would work. I thought the questions helped us to discuss the work. It would be different if we all met at a coffee shop for a discussion, but that isn’t possible in this situation. I was glad there was some structure. And the questions were pretty open so everyone could answer them however they wanted. I didn’t feel pressure to pay extra attention or anything when I was reading. For me this is just for fun.
TBM: That is exactly the kind of thing I was trying to duplicate with this. I guess we could have all read the section and then done a free-from discussion on it, but I like the idea of coming up with a few questions to get things started, knowing that we all still have the option of talking about whatever we want to about the book. The great thing about having the blog discussions is that the questions can just be the spring board for more detailed discussions, emulating as close as possible to sitting around having a discussion with friends about a book you had all read.
I wouldn’t like the questions ahead of time because I think that would interrupt the reading experience not lead to a more organic reading/discussion experience.
I agree. Who wants to feel like they are doing homework? I’m also enjoying hearing people’s opinions about the questions and how some feel differently or have a different point of view. I’ve been in book clubs and the person leading the group would usually prepare questions to get the juices flowing.
Having the questions provides a good jumping point for discussions. Normally when we all post reviews of books on our blogs, not everyone has read the same book, so there’s limited opportunity to discuss what we’ve read. Doing the group read doesn’t feel like work today, but rather makes it more fun, because we’re all reading the same book at the same time. Even if it is a bit academicy, it’s fun!
This is my first experience reading a book this way simply for the fun of doing so, and I am finding that I am enjoying it a great deal. Kailana and I have been doing buddy reads for awhile and those are great too. Both dynamics provide for some interesting interactive reading.
It’s been decades since I read this series, but I did read four Dune books as I recall. I’ve no idea how many of them there are now. I know I read Dune at least twice, maybe three times.
No one has mentioned the recent television mini-series version, so I’m just going to mention it. There.
While I’m not in this group, I will come down on the side of having questions to guide discussion. Good questions can be very helpful, and no one ever has to stick to them if they don’t want to.
I do recall the book being dialogue heavy. This is my usual complaint with epic fantasy/science fiction. There is often so much political intrigue explained in detail through dialogue that I lose sight of the adventure. That’s why I’ve always loved The Hobbit and tolerated The Lord of the Rings.
And, finally, just a quick correction, while I never made it to the end of the book, I don’t think anyone ever did land Moby Dick, though many died trying. ;=)
I did mention the mini-series somewhere, although it might have been at one of the other sites. I saw it once when it was first aired and I really liked parts of it and was disappointed at others. But that was entirely in my comparison of it with the film. I did say that once this read is over I am really wanting to try to track down the mini-series and watch it again.
Thanks for joining in cb. I am/was hoping others who have read Dune before would chime in as that just makes the discussion richer.
Before this started I suspect several people would have bet on my dying long before I ever finally cracked open my copy of this book. 🙂
I am loving your responses to finally reading Dune! It’s one of my favorites that I’ve re-read a few times. Can’t wait to read more responses!
Amanda: I’m enjoying the second part of the book even more than the first, and I too am looking forward to everyone’s responses to the next set of questions. Its been a fun experience reading this with a group of folks online.
Oddly enough, I just started reading Dune! My mouth fell open when I read this post. 😀 If my classes will permit, I hope I can join in!
Would love to have you do so. I’ll add you to the email list for this next round of questions.
I wish I could still catch-up!
Is there no way you can, Wil?
Hi I have finished the first one-third of the book! I did not see your second batch of questions in my e-mail though. Please send it to dejesus.wilson@yahoo.com Thanks!
I have posted my answers to the first batch of questions in my blog! I appreciate the warm accommodation!
Finally got caught up with part one of the discussion. Am off to delve into part two soon 🙂
Finished part one about thirty minutes ago, and just finished posting about it. I am enthralled!
I am not reading along with your group but just had to say that Dune remains, to this date, as the greatest book I have ever read.
Nothing before, nor after, captured my mind as much as Herbert did; his plots so delicately woven; his universe so vast, rich and overflowing.
For those who are discovering the book for the first time – you have a fantastic journey of discovery ahead of you.
I can certainly see why, Mark. I was and remain amazed by it. What a great read. I am so in awe of the way it stands up all these years later and just how deep and powerful the story is.