“How would you like to
live billions upon billions of lives?” Paul asked. “There’s a fabric of legends
for you! Think of all those experiences, the wisdom they’d bring. But wisdom
tempers love, doesn’t it? And it puts a new shape on hate. Now can you tell
what’s ruthless unless you’ve plumbed the depths of both cruelty and kindness?
You should fear me, Mother. I am the Kwisatz Haderach.”
If someone asked me what
my favorite science fiction book was, my immediate instinct would be to shout: “easy,
Frank Herbert’s, Dune!” However, my actual memories of the book were
hazy, colored largely by David Lynch’s eccentric adaptation of the book (which
I still adore). So which Dune was I responding to, book or film? To
answer this question, I decided to re-read the first book (at least) to
separate fact from fiction, myth from matter. The results surprised me, but
largely in the way I expected. For one, the book is much better than I
remembered, and certainly a far more complete work of art than the film. In
many ways, Dune is the work Machiavelli would write if he was born in
the early 20th century rather than the 15th. Indeed, it bears the unmistakable
stamp of the Italian Renaissance in its philosophy, political intrigue, and
bizarre characters, any one of which might have existed in the courts of
Lorenzo di Medici. When I read Dune, I was haunted by memories of not
only The Prince, but works such as Castiglione’s The Courtier and
More’s Utopia—as well as a subtle perfume of Shakespeare’s darker works
such as Measure for Measure or King Lear. I say this not only
because of the work’s literary merit, but because it shares age-old themes
about power and the sacrifices required to maintain it.
