I’ve had a copy of Dune since I was 15 or 16 years old. I got it in a box from some genius that went to my high school. Another book in there was Dragons of Eden that probably changed my life because it (re)introduced me to Carl Sagan.

But I’m reading a lot these days and I finally took the time to read Dune. I watched the original movie when I was probably 6 or so and that was a terrible idea for a child. After I read the book I watched the new movie and it was really gorgeous. They were able to bring pictures from the book to life in an incredible way. But it missed all of the mental gymnastics, all of the political intrigue, and all of the beauty of the words. I’m glad they’re doing it over multiple movies at least giving it some space, but it really needs to be a long form television series.

So here we go, here’s my book report.

1.) There was a family who loved their home. They loved Caladan and they had to move someplace that was awful. Frank Herbert did a terrific job of that sensation of being ripped away from satisfaction, from meaning, from purpose.

2.) They moved to Arrakis knowing it was a hellhole compared to their home, and also having an idea there was a good chance they could die. Yet everyone (except you know who) was still trying to do the right thing bound by etiquette and for the people.

3.)I really identified with Duke Leto more than Paul.

4.) You have to read extra things to know the world is opposed to AI because of a previous catastrophe and so the forging the minds of the Benne Gesserit and the Mentats was to have some way of super-powered computation. I really like that idea of sharpening the mind to incredible computational ability. We know there are humans alive with these abilities now but to focus it is amazing. Not obviously through the breeding programs and statecraft used.

5.) Paul’s mom worries to much.

6.) Frank Herbert was a deeply spiritual person but could see the limitations of all religions, how they could literally be manipulated for all kinds of purposes. Yet he still had optimistic naïveté about spirituality and the possibility of the supernatural.

7.) He was heavily influenced by Foundation. Psychohistory and the Mentats and the Benne Gesserit was a super obvious connection. And the galactic empire. He tied it closer to Earth though. I think it’s the same universe, honestly. Possibly a different empire or just a different time.

8.) I’m always amazed when I read science fiction written 40+ years ago that seems like it could be written now. Both with quality of writing and nothing that makes it seem like it was only based on the tech of the decade it was written in. “By The Waters of Babylon” was written in 1937 but I’d believe it was written today. I think it generally helps if it is “soft” science fiction as that is usually focusing more on social or cultural issues and less on the tech.

9.) Beware of doctors!

10.) Most importantly- Herbert was deeply committed to the environment. I see Liet-Kynes as probably the most important person from Herbert’s typewriter. I say that because he made him ‘the judge’. The judge of the emperor but also he is who personally judged Leto and Jessica and Paul as a Freman and found them worth saving. Herbert gave Kynes a death by the planet and environment and microorganisms versus by the hand of man. He even took the time to show us his death thoughts. Here was the vehicle for ‘something greater than ourselves’ through globally activated permaculture. Humans being a great catalyst for life, and life creating and paving the way for more life. Water was the obvious theme but the concept of pushing the environment into a positive cycle not from bringing a comet on the planet with ice (not sure if scientists knew about that as a method for terraforming back then) but just from the contribution of life to bring about more and different and more abundant life. And there’s a whole addendum committed to the ecology of Dune. We know Herbert started working on this while working on literal ecological projects. It’s a love letter to the environment and to the hope for life to find a way. I think that’s a nice thought on Earth Day.

Happy Earth Day, everyone! Please try to be a catalyst for life and for good, despite the odds in front of you.

“There comes a time- it is the beginning of manhood or womanhood- when one realizes that adventure is as humdrum as routine unless one assimilates it, unless one relates it to a central core which grows within and gives it contour and significance. Raw experience is empty, just as empty as the forecastle of a whaler, as in the chamber of a counting-house; it is not what one does, but in a manifold sense, what one realizes, that keeps existence from being vain and trivial.

Mankind moves about in worlds not realized. Ages hence people may realize more keenly what has happened today than our contemporaries do. It is the artist, the knower, the sayer, who realizes human experience, who takes the raw lump of ore we find in nature, smelts it, refines it, assays it, and stamps it into coins that can pass from hand to hand and make every man who touches them the richer.”

-Lewis Mumford.

Tools

What I took away from finally reading Dune

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Experience Not Realized

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Safe Ships

I can think.

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Arrived to my new home, Oceanside, California

“He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist."

"Make your goals unreasonable."