When I finally got around to reading Seven Pillars, I wasn't too far in before I was convinced Herbert had the book on his desk the whole time he was writing Dune. So many minor similarities, little scenes that don't quite match up but if you squint they do. Even the arc toward eventually committing war crimes, while seeking some great end for the people he's leading, feels like a connection. But also little stuff like the early travel scenes in Pillars reminded me of early scenes among the Caladanians(?) in Dune.
I think the part where I went "OK yeah this was the reference when he was coming up with the core plot and character of Paul" was when I came across the part where Lawrence comes up with his novel guerrilla war strategy: he's sick, feverish, possibly dying, in a tent in the desert, tended by a few companions. When he comes out of it, he's got his Path. It's too perfect.
[edit] Incidentally, it's not clear to me this author has a good picture of Lawrence's background. Lines like this:
> In terms of clothing, Lawrence comes to accept the Arab dress as “convenient in such a climate” and blends in with his Arab companions by wearing it instead of the British officer uniform.
make me think the author isn't aware that Lawrence had already spent a lot of time in the Middle East (especially, IIRC, modern Syria—so, near Damascus) very shortly before the war broke out, and that was a big part of why he was recruited by British intelligence for the mission(s) in Seven Pillars. It was on an earlier, pre-war trip that he'd adopted Arab dress—unlike what's suggested (if not quite stated) in the film Lawrence of Arabia, he was already quite familiar with and comfortable in it.
>unlike what's suggested (if not quite stated) in the film Lawrence of Arabia
The scene from the movie is based on this passage from chapter 20 of Seven Pillars, which suggests that while he was familiar with Arab clothing before the war, there was a period of time when he was in British army uniform during the Arab conflict, until he was asked by Feisal to change into Arab clothes:
"Suddenly Feisal asked me if I would wear Arab clothes like his own while in the camp. I should find it better for my own part, since it was a comfortable dress in which to live Arab-fashion as we must do. Besides, the tribesmen would then understand how to take me. The only wearers of khaki in their experience had been Turkish officers, before whom they took up an instinctive defence. If I wore Meccan clothes, they would behave to me as though I were really one of the leaders; and I might slip in and out of Feisal’s tent without making a sensation which he had to explain away each time to strangers. I agreed at once, very gladly; for army uniform was abominable when camel-riding or when sitting about on the ground; and the Arab things, which I had learned to manage before the war, were cleaner and more decent in the desert."
Also, the below quote is from the introduction, which I might add is perhaps the most beautiful introduction I've ever read. I sometimes go back just to read it:
"In my case, the effort for these years to live in the dress of Arabs, and to imitate their mental foundation, quitted me of my English self, and let me look at the West and its conventions with new eyes: they destroyed it all for me, At the same time I could not sincerely take on the Arab skin: it was an affectation only. Easily was a man made an infidel, but hardly might he be converted to another faith. I had dropped one form and not taken on the other, and was become like Mohammed’s coffin in our legend, with a resultant feeling of intense loneliness in life, and a contempt, not for other men, but for all they do."
The discrepancy is easy to explain; Frank Herbert never owned a copy of Seven Pillars but was instead inspired by a manuscript of desert adventures that he’d found on a train as a boy whilst holidaying in the UK.
What's ironic is how people often point to plot points in many franchises (Star Wars, GoT, etc) as being derivative of Dune... Yet Dune itself is fairly derivative of other works
It’s even more stark the further back you go. When the printing press was invented, it didn’t usher in a new era of creativity but instead the first few centuries resembled modern Hollywood: shameless sequels and reboots. By far the most popular books were translations of Greek classics and rote derivatives of the Arthurian legends. It wasn’t until the first iterations of copyright and a few other cultural shifts that a “professional” writer class was born and started to expand on the creativity of our stories. Until then publishing wasn’t profitable enough to support a real creative process, so they cribbed as much from existing canon as they could to make ends meet. See how long it took science fiction to properly develop into a literary form, for example.
> When the printing press was invented, it didn’t usher in a new era of creativity but instead the first few centuries resembled modern Hollywood
It ushered in massive creativity! The early printshops were innovation hot-beds and quickly developed textual things that had never existed at scale before, like dictionaries, newspapers, political cartoons, encyclopaedia, technical drawings / manuals lacking copy errors, local maps, etc.
The first book I concur but the series goes in directions I would never have predicted in multiple places in later books, off the top of my head - books four and five stand out in memory, though he laid the groundwork in the first book.
On Star Wars and derivations... Bertram Thomas' Arabia Felix, about his crossing of the Empty Quarter, listed some names of stars, transliterated from the arabic.
The north star, was written as Al Jedi... the Jedi. It goes a step further, in that it's arabic which translates as the kid (as in a goat, but the same way Hans refers to Luke).
I'm not sure how much is coincidence, but reading about Thomas preparing to travel by starlight, it struck me as being remarkably reminiscent. I guess there are no original stories.
This has relatively little relevance to Dune, which is basically the story of how the worse dictator in history rose to power (only to be surpassed by his son's 1200 year reign of tyranny).
Very interesting point of view, considering how Baron Harkonnen was depicted in Dune. I mean, was the life in Empire better or worse after he took power? Did life of common citizen changed much?
My view was that he basically just replaced Emperor by himself and most of things was still the same. He even married the princess just for pretence.
My view was that Herbert was trying to show how we could try to direct human progress and evolution if we would have ability to see the future. Both Paul and Leto II have such ability and they tried to do it with mediocre success. Tides of history were largely operating by forces they could not change but slightly skew.
My though was that they were both just trying to do good for the mankind, kind of succeeded, but not much - Leto was by intention so bad that when he finally fall - people scattered through galaxy with those new ships that did not need spice.
Was not this the real moral of the story? Resist stagnant empire and explore the universe? Basically the same as Foundation that is book from the same era?
The fremen jihad killed 61 billion people across the empire, including the sterilization of 90 whole planets, per details in Dune Messiah (quoting from a wiki, I don't have this kind of memory). It may be that life in the empire after this was over returned more or less to the same as what was there before, for those that survived - though I don't think the books go into any significant detail. Life on Dune was definitely better than it had been under the Harkonnens, but this is not necessarily true across the empire.
> Was not this the real moral of the story? Resist stagnant empire and explore the universe?
I think this is somewhat the general idea, but more specific. His main message is that charismatic leaders, even the ones with the best of intentions as Paul certainly was (and Leto II, though in a more complex way), are extremely dangerous and should not be trusted or followed. The empire overall would have been an unquestionably better place if Paul had been killed in the desert (except that perhaps the Bene Gesserit would have led people in an even worse direction if their plans had succeeded at the time). Arrakis itself would have been in a better shape if the fremen had risen up and overthrown their oppressors, but had otherwise stopped at that.
It may be because I have read this like 20 years ago but I remember something in a sense of accomplishment from Leto II when he was killed. Like: there is no way of stopping it now - the spread of humanity in the universe.
So according to me first book was a bit dark:
- Paul accomplishing his goal but failing ultimatively - per what you are saying - starting the jihad
- In the second he is killed but we have his children - so again a bit dark but with hope.
- In the third we have - making a new empire and change from desert to a green planet - so again hope for something better coming even if it is a but slow (god-emperor living for hundreds of years)
- Then we have really two strange books but last one, at least last written by Herbert, ends with one character asking other one if the purpose of all those events is understood, and the second chacter realizes this purpose with kind of awe.
So to me in overall Dune was a positive tale. according to you it is just grim sentence: do not fall for the words of false prophet.
Imho if this would be just it, would be little sad.
But maybe I should read them again maybe after so many years, the reception will be different.
I think your memory is mostly right. Leto II essentially wanted to instill into humanity this lesson, do not fall for the words of the prophet, permanently: his reign would forever be remembered as the hell that this can lead to. And yes, he was satisfied with being killed, as this was the goal of his plan as well: torture humanity for a thousand years, teaching them a lesson they will never forget (especially in the universe of Dune, where genetic memory is a thing), and then be defeated by them, teaching also that no evil is too big to overcome. Note that this is about any prophet, false or true. Both Paul and Leto II were true prophets, but this made them no less dangerous.
But Paul is exactly the failed version of Leto II. Paul saw the option of doing what his son did, but didn't have the courage to do it. He instead chose to believe that he can become the benevolent dictator that would uplift humanity through his strong moral core, and instead brought only needless suffering to the galaxy and to all those around him.
The good future that Leto II fought for is one where every human is truly unique and free, spreading in a thousand distinct directions, impossible to predict for anyone (which also implies that they are impossible to lead as an overall group, as they will never again accept to follow someone else).
> Was not this the real moral of the story? Resist stagnant empire and explore the universe? Basically the same as Foundation that is book from the same era?
I think the "moral" of Dune shifts pretty dramatically between Messiah and Children. Dune and Messiah are essentially a warning about charismatic leaders reshaping the world in their eyes, abusing religion and faith to do so, and harming all humanity in the process whilst losing their own. Paul Atreides is not a desert mouse, but a sandworm that consumes all in his path. This isn't even subtext, it's basically stated explicitly both in the text and in later writing/talks by Herbert himself.
In the later books I think it shifts a bit to a story that one must lose their humanity in order to save it, and it's important that Leto is not Paul.
True, but the references in Star Wars to spice (spice mines of Kessel in the original, a reference to striking spice miners in Attack of the Clones) is pretty much only from Dune. Unless they were mining oregano or something.
The Dutch East Indies was literally "mining" spice ( cinnamon, cassia, cardamom, ginger, pepper, nutmeg, star anise, clove, and turmeric ) from SE Asia for European consumption and packing ship with gold bullion in exchange.
There were many actual "spice wars" fought in the region to wipe out competing crops, to build alliances, and later betray those local allies, etc.
The wildest thing about European colonialism is that it was kicked off to get more spices for European food. Then in the worlds most bizarre twist European food gave up all spices a few centuries later and colonies had to invent something else to sell back to the colonial centre.
"All the spices", save for tea, coffee, and sugar, which continued to be imported in quantity. And are addictive to boot.
A century or so later, laudenum.
The spice trade itself didn't shrink so much as it was subsumed by other trade, I think, particularly as shipping capacity, reliability, and safety increased.
My point being that 1) the UK continued to import luxury consumables and 2) probably maintained spice imports, though I don't have hard data.
If you have data to bring to the discussion I'd be interested in seeing it.
Sugar is included in what were termed spices, FWIW:
In the medieval and early modern periods, ‘spice’ was a term liberally applied to all kinds of exotic natural products from pepper to sugar, herbs to animal secretions.
From the sources I'm finding (relatively few and vague, granted), my interpretation is less that total trade in spices (however construed) fell in absolute tonnage than that the per-tonne value dropped as the goods fell in price and were consumed by far greater shares of the population. It wasn't that spices were less a part of culinary culture, but that because they were so common (both senses of the word) they became less significant. Total tonnage and likely overall value were all but certainly increasing, but the importance attached to formerly exotic goods (pepper, ginger, cinnamon, etc.) fell as anybody could attain these.
Look to the history of the pineapple (of which there were once temples built in its honor in Europe) from exotic to highly mundane fruit for another example:
The airquotes on "mining" would signify to some that literal mining with excavators, screens, crushers, etc was not intended rather an operation that was literally on the scale of mining with an economic return on par with gold mining a rich vein.
Others might disagree. English is a fun language.
What cannot be disputed is the significant increase in national wealth brought home by the Dutch operations in what was known as the Dutch East Indies.
Batavia ( now Jakarta) was the capital of the VOC's lucrative spice trade for 3½ centuries.
Ships laden with tamarind, mace, cloves and nutmeg – at that time worth more, gram for gram, than gold - sailed from there to the Netherlands and often wrecked on the Western Australian coast returning with gold.
It's the value per weight part that merits comparison with Spanish aquisition of gold in the new world.
However, using the word "literally" is a poor choice. "Figuratively" would be better, or even just leave out "literally" and allow "mining" to be interpreted by the reader.
It was deliberate choice in a sub thread that's literally about literary metaphors.
As a native english reader, writer and speaker of some six decades I grasp the tension in the use of ' literally "airquoted" ' and embrace it.
I also enjoy Riddley Walker, the first edition of Clockwork Orange (sans lexicographic annexure), and the outrageously provocative shock value of the opening sentence of Burgess's panoramic saga Earthly Powers.
Absolutely, I enjoyed making a comment that generated some push back and I enjoyed defending my considered choice.
My only mild disappointment is that while I opened the door by airquoting "mining" and drawing attention to an actual nation scale spice industry no one made comment on the "spice mining" in both Dune and in the Spice mines of Kessel being both the harvesting of a seasonally produced organic bloom.
In Dune the spice harvesters surface scooped fresh blooms as they appeared from active worms, on Kessel I believe (I'm no authority here) they harvested old buried organics using mineral mining techniques rather than fresh cropping from a surface source.
nowadays (past few decades) 'mine' (and farm) are often used in place of gather, esp. when it comes to game communities, e.g. 'mine' wood in 'warcraft III'. Farm any sort of materials, equipment, reputation, etc. So I suppose it's not that far fetched.
True, of course, however the spice mining in Star Wars refers to mining minerals and converting them to drugs. And of course, without any doubt both the mining and the spice have influence from Dune.
The part of that interview that's stuck with me after I listened to this last year was his comments about the feudal system (at around 38:30 [1]).
So, tribal organisation is a natural organisation of humankind. We tend to fall into it, given any chance at all, given the proper stresses, or given the proper lack of stresses.
FH: Well, one of the threads in the story is to trace a possible way a messiah is created in our society, and I hope I was successful in making it believable. Here we have the entire process, or at least the large and some of the subtle elements of the construction of this, both from the individual standpoint, and from the way society demands this of you. It’s the references in there, you know, that the man must recognize the myth he is living in, because the creation of an avatar is a mythmaking process. We’ve done it in our…in recent times. Look at what’s happening to John F. Kennedy.
WM: O, sure.
FH: Who was a very earthy, real, and not totally holy man…so here we have a likeable person, now, you see…
WM: Yes.
FH: But real in the flesh and blood sense who by the process of emulation becomes something larger than life, far larger than life, and I’ve just explored all of as many permutations as I could recognize in the process.
WM: Oh, I-I caught overtones of Lawrence of Arabia in the thing, for example.
FH: He could very well become an avatar for the…for the Arabs.
WM: Right.
FH: If Lawrence of Arabia had died at the crucial moment of the British…
WM: Say, when Allenby walked into Jerusalem.
FH: Yes. If he had died…if, for example, he had gone up and killed the people who were destroying his breed, walked into that conference and said, Gentlemen, I have here under my javala a surprise, Bang! Bang! Bang! and he had been killed…
WM: He’d have been deified.
FH: He would have been deified. And it would have been the most terrifying thing the British had ever encountered, because the Arabs would have swept that entire peninsula with that sort of force, because one of the things we’ve done in our society is exploited this power…Western man has exploited this avatar power.
I do think it's unfair when people claim Dune is a straight retelling of T.E. Lawrence's story. For instance I think the messianic aspects are drawn from other episodes in history, like the Mahdist War
If you really wanted to you could say even George RR Martin was influenced by it.
(Game of Thrones spoilers below)
Look at the character arc of Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones. You will find some similarities there too both with Dune and with Lawrence of Arabia. But with a female character rather than a male.
> make me think the author isn't aware that Lawrence had already spent a lot of time in the Middle East
it is actually mentioned in the article. you misread here, with the point being that knowing how to do something is not the same as accepting it for a normal activity.
I think the part where I went "OK yeah this was the reference when he was coming up with the core plot and character of Paul" was when I came across the part where Lawrence comes up with his novel guerrilla war strategy: he's sick, feverish, possibly dying, in a tent in the desert, tended by a few companions. When he comes out of it, he's got his Path. It's too perfect.
[edit] Incidentally, it's not clear to me this author has a good picture of Lawrence's background. Lines like this:
> In terms of clothing, Lawrence comes to accept the Arab dress as “convenient in such a climate” and blends in with his Arab companions by wearing it instead of the British officer uniform.
make me think the author isn't aware that Lawrence had already spent a lot of time in the Middle East (especially, IIRC, modern Syria—so, near Damascus) very shortly before the war broke out, and that was a big part of why he was recruited by British intelligence for the mission(s) in Seven Pillars. It was on an earlier, pre-war trip that he'd adopted Arab dress—unlike what's suggested (if not quite stated) in the film Lawrence of Arabia, he was already quite familiar with and comfortable in it.