Let me start by first apologizing to everyone who loves this classic. I don't doubt Dune was something special when it first came out in the 1960s. But reading it for the first time today, it feels horribly outdated to me and at times almost incomprehensible.
I was warned going into this story that the beginning is extremely hard to understand, but that is an understatement. I could barely follow its scene after scene of dialogue referencing people and places and events, all with no explanation or context. It literally feels like I was just dropped into the middle of a book, and everything had already been explained elsewhere.
But it gets better, right? Well, only somewhat. A narrative does take shape, but the writing style remains confusing and obscure. It manages to be both long-winded and not clear enough, if you can believe that. Certain obvious points are harped on again and again, but other crucial ones are merely glossed over. Then, when you inevitably miss those important points, they create this cascading effect that keeps you mired in confusion.
The writing is also pretentious, with regular or nonsensical things consistently being presented in a profound way. There are plenty of extraneous paragraphs that sound good until you try to discern their meaning, at which point you'd be stumped. This sort of writing really confused me because I couldn't figure out which paragraphs mattered and needed to be dissected carefully to suss out their hidden meaning, and which ones are just adornment.
As for the story itself, it was a complete mismatch with my interests. I like science fiction with lots of real science. Instead, this is a space opera (a.k.a. a soap opera that takes place in space) with no actual science. It's all political intrigue, melodrama, doublespeak, and who has power over who, which I have zero interest in. I also couldn't care less about how fawningly amazing Paul is and how he is destined to be the chosen one.
This was such a frustrating reading experience because it could've been an amazing story. And there were moments in the beginning when I thought it was going in those creative directions. I was riveted during that infamous test in the first scene, only to realize that it was completely irrelevant to the rest of the story. Or to see where the book could take the scientific aspects of a desert planet and a population with so little water, which it didn't other than a bit of lip service.
But the book stubbornly chose to disregard these more interesting avenues, and instead took the most straightforward, boring route of making this into a story about power struggle. Well, we could've saved ourselves the bother and just stayed on Earth for that.
Readaroo Rating: 2 stars
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