Reviews with content warning for Racism - Dune

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Dune by Frank Herbert

35 reviews

luminifera's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I find some of the characters very annoying for many different reasons, but the worst for sure is Chani. She simply

has no personality outside of being Paul's love interest

, which is kind of outrageous.

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nozomi's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.25

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jackeline_cruz_'s review against another edition

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adventurous challenging informative inspiring reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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nemappelezpasnono's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Let's just say that it is a product of its time

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thevampiremars's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic.”

I didn’t really know what to expect going in. I knew it was a science fiction classic featuring a young man called Paul on a desert planet that may or may not be called Dune, and I knew that there were big worms and something to do with spice – a rough outline, nothing more.

I think Dune can best be described as sci-fi for history buffs. It’s full of political intrigue, factions and dynasties, empire building, and so on, but also of note are the incessant spoilers courtesy of Princess Irulan. We are told who these characters are and what they will go on to do, to the extent that it sometimes feels like watching a reenactment of what happened or a dramatisation of a well-known legend rather than events unfolding in real time. At first I was thrown off by it but I adjusted and learnt to accept the writing for what it is instead of getting hung up on what I thought it would be.

Dune is, above all else, a story about expectations and adaptation. Having to adjust my own perspective in response to this curveball of a novel meant there was a neat parallel between my own reading experience and the experiences of the characters on the page having to adjust to life on Arrakis – a good avenue for sympathy and connection.

Paul, our protagonist, is entirely shaped by the expectations placed upon him.

He takes on various names and titles over the course of the story (Duke Paul Atreides, the Kwisatz Haderach, the Lisan al Gaib, Muad’Dib, Usul) and these personas seem to supersede any true sense of self he may have once had. His identity fractures and frays at the climax; not only does he flit back and forth between multiple selves, he also refers to them in the third person and assigns them different motives and personalities (“You have the word of a Duke [...] but Muad’Dib is another matter.”) I don’t know if I’d insist that Paul is plural, but his selfhood is certainly compromised and complicated by all these assumed identities.

Of course, while I’m on the topic of identity, I have to talk about gender – this book is riddled with it. I wouldn’t be the first to point out that women exist in this narrative only as they relate to men, and that they’re portrayed as intuitive, emotional, nurturing, and, above all, passive. I also wouldn’t be the first to note the queerness inherent to the Kwisatz Haderach, a boy with access to powers normally possessed only by women, who can see “both masculine and feminine pasts” – “the male who can truly become one of us.”

Paul has a drug-induced epiphany late in the novel wherein he claims women are givers and men are takers, and that he himself is “the fulcrum” who cannot give without taking nor take without giving.

That moment serves as a good demonstration of Dune’s strange synthesis of essentialism and transgressiveness. And I must say, the fulcrum quote really resonated with me as a genderqueer person.

I’ve talked about Paul, now it’s time to talk about Baron Harkonnen.

He starts off as a vague force of evil that influences the actions of others, only becoming a fully fledged character after the betrayal of Duke Leto.

Herbert could not have made it any clearer that this guy is a villain we’re supposed to loathe. Not only is he a power-hungry capitalist, he’s also an incestuous pedophile and (even worse!) he’s very fat. Yeah, the fatphobia is... not great. And that’s not the only thorny issue here. Dune is inseparable from its Orientalist manner, genocide is treated as set dressing, and eugenics (though criticised) does seem to be granted some legitimacy within the narrative. I don’t want to dwell on these problematic elements but at the same time I can’t disregard them.

Does Dune deserve four and a half stars? Probably not. Am I going to give it four and a half stars anyway? You bet. It’s not beyond criticism (far from it) but I thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless. I’m curious to see where the story goes from here and I’ve already ordered Dune Messiah, but I won’t be reading it just yet because I have quite a backlog of unread books to work through first.

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apersonfromflorida's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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marinapaso11's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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melancholymegs's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I can objectively see why this book is held in such high acclaim. But subjectively my feelings toward this book are pretty neutral. Will continue the series, but not in the immediate future.

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tinyjude's review against another edition

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adventurous slow-paced

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stephbakerbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I have so many mixed feelings about Dune I don't know where to begin! So I'm making things easier on myself by just listing what I liked and didn't like...

What I liked:
- the setting, and cool world-building
- the planet of Arrakis
- stillsuits were pretty sweet
- Jessica, for the most part
- the fact that nothing is really explained, we just have to figure it out from context or by reading the glossary
- riding sandworms
- the intros at the beginning of each chapter, which tell you exactly what is going to happen in the future so there are no real surprises
- Kynes
- sometimes liked Paul when he wasn't being boring or spouting nonsense because he can
- the fact that I got through all 600+ pages

What I didn't like:
- I could not connect to the characters and didn't see a ton of development. An "important" character would pop up and then disappear for three hundred pages, only to return just briefly or die or never get mentioned again. Paul was special because he was special and automatically good at everything, so there wasn't really any room for his growth.
- the slowwwwww prose
- the "chosen one" trope, which maybe wasn't as common when this book was written but is very overdone now
- the evil character is evil just because he is evil and fat
- the late late late arrival of Chani
- the intros at the beginning of each chapter, which tell you exactly what is going to happen in the future so there are no real surprises
- the random two-year time jump
- and lastly, I perhaps could have forgiven all the above, if not that I just do not like Herbert's writing style...it drove me crazy. This is written in third-person omniscient, which was already my least-favorite POV style, and the constant jumping between character's heads and thoughts plus the disconnected way Herbert writes about the characters had me bored or frustrated for most of the book.

Okay, so maybe there was more that I didn't like then did like...but I did still like some of it. And I appreciate the fact that it did a lot for the science fiction genre in its time. But I also just don't understand why people love it so much 😅

I did watch the movie and enjoyed it a lot more than the book!

Also as always, please be wary of the content warnings; if you ever need more info about one, don't hesitate to ask!

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