I decided to read Frank Herbert's science fiction classic: Dune. It didn't take long but I eventually crossed the critical 100 page threshold which commits me unequivocally. I was able to overcome the fact that Herbert didn't write his story in chapters. Did you know Dune is written as 400+ page running stream of consciousness with the occasional page break marked by bizarre mystical quotes from a character you don't see until the last ten pages of the book? I didn't. But I did something with Dune that I have never done before with any other book.
I skimmed paragraphs!
You may think this to be no big deal, but you have to understand how monumental this is. I've never skimmed anything. Not even text books in school. I just can't absorb books that way. I never have. If I'm going to get from beginning to end and understand the full story, I read every word. Word for Word... the entire thing. Otherwise I find myself skipping over critical bits of plot, or subtle nuances of character development.
But with Dune I finally realized (about 200 pages in) that Frank Herbert is one messed up dude. The man did (without question) a shit-load of pot. And occasionally this would manifest in bizarre meandering paragraphs where characters examine their navel's for undetermined periods of time. After the tenth time a character started babbling about some random cosmic connection to the universe I figured out that ultimately it didn't propel the story forward. I just needed to know that they were trippin'... nothing more.
Perhaps I'm not getting my point across. Here's an excerpt from the story.
"Whirling silence settled around Jessica. Every fiber of her body accepted the fact that something profound had happened to it. She felt that she was a conscious mote, smaller than any subatomic particle, yet capable of motion and of sensing her surroundings. Like an abrupt revelation - the curtains whipped away - she realized she had become aware of a psychokinesthetic extension of herself. She was the mote yet not the mote."
What the hell is that? That's the kind of shit I'm talking about. Other than these bizarre acid trips I enjoyed Dune. It is a fantastically creative story with compelling character drama wrapped up in a gritty science fiction shell with shades of religious underpinnings. If you enjoy epic science fiction and you are interested in a story that has spawned thousands of other writers, read Dune.
But you have been warned.
7 comments:
from personal experience, the best way to read dune is just as fried as frank was when he wrote it. :)
and i'm the same way, i can't skim a book. or speed read, whatever the hell that is. never could. either i read it or i don't.
somehow though, i highly doubt that franks drug of choice was pot. acid, shrooms, hash maybe but pots way to mild for that kind of thing. especially the stuff that was available in the 60's. the thc levels of today's pot is about 4 times greater on average. but then again, maybe he was kinda screwy in the head to begin with and didn't need much to slide into psycho babble. :)
heather, lol!! You continually crack my stuff UP!
I'm surprised that I've never read this, Cybe. Seen the movie(s) yes; read the book, no. But you make me want to now. I may pick it up after "The Time Traveller's Wife" which ROCKS.
The thought of reading every word in Dune makes me feel like I'm tripping. I've actually read it twice--once when I was entire too young to understand what was going on and once more recently to wonder why on earth my mother would let me read it in the first place.
I re-read the entire 6 book series at least once every two years. I can't get enough it.
And for the record, Herbert never did drugs. He just had an imagination that was so vivid it was like looking through a hole into an alternate universe.
That is my favorite pick up line in singles bars, "Are you the mote yet not the mote?"
I liked the first book, but they got progressively worse as the series continued.
My momma told me not to stick my head up into any dark holes, but Frank Herbert was just raised different, I guess.
I don't really do much reading, so can't really say I will go and read that. I also don't do well when a lot of drug use is involved in a story...it makes me nauseous.
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