I honestly don’t even know where to begin. When I wrote my review of the first Dune, it felt so much simpler compared to this.
Damn you, Frank Herbert. How is it possible for an author to lay out the entire story within the first few pages, literally summarizing the events, and still manage to keep me completely hooked until the last page? He even had a historian explain exactly how Paul would fall.
People who’ve read this will understand that everything both happened and didn’t happen as we were told. It’s all one huge paradox. Jessica’s letter to Alia captures the essence of Paul’s downfall, especially the last sentence:
“You produce a deadly paradox,” Jessica had written. “Government cannot be religious and self-assertive at the same time. Religious experience needs a spontaneity which laws inevitably suppress. And you cannot govern without laws. Your laws eventually must replace morality, replace conscience, replace even the religion by which you think you govern. Sacred ritual must spring from praise and holy yearnings which hammer out a significant morality. Government, on the other hand, is a cultural organism particularly attractive to doubts, questions, and contentions. *I see the day coming when ceremony must take the place of faith and symbolism replaces morality.*”
The chapter of Chani’s death, Paul seeing through his son’s eyes and having the strength to overcome the Tleilaxu’s plot is probably one of the best pieces of writing I’ve read. Meticulously and beautifully executed. And his having the desert take him according to Fremen tradition because of his true blindness after losing Chani; it was perfect. So perfect and in line with his higher sense of morality of submitting to what had to happen and choosing the lesser evil. It was tragic, and I held out hope until the last page that maybe, just maybe, Duncan would run after him and stop him.
I think what happened can be summed up with this quote from Duncan Idaho’s mind:
The Bene Tleilax and the Guild had overplayed their hands and had lost, were discredited. The Qizarate was shaken by the treason of Korba and others high within it. And Paul’s final voluntary act, his ultimate acceptance of their customs, had ensured the loyalty of the Fremen to him and his house. He was one of them forever now.
I doubt this series would reach a higher peak after this point, Paul was the spirit of it all for me.
Do I look forward to reading Children of Dune as much as I anticipated Dune Messiah after finishing the first book? Not so much. But Frank Herbert is a mastermind, so who knows? He might surprise me yet – even if he’s going to tell me what happens right at the beginning again, lol.
by ra2007