Idioms and Euphemisms floating and stinging in my mind as I listen to Hunters of Dune, the first book in the Dune series that was not written by Frank Herbert himself.
While I think it is really cool that his son and his partners found the lost notes and outlines for these latter books, and I am glad they dared to finish his father's story, it is very clear that this next book is not written by the same author.
I agree that trying to copy his father's style completely would have been a mistake, but also they could not have done it even if they had tried.
I am scattered trying to write this ...book review?... and very likely for some reasons that made Frank the intriguing writer and thinker he was.
As I listen to Hunters of Dune play on my Audible device, I can't help but think that this storytelling is much more superficial.
Paradoxically, one of the elements of this new prose that makes it the story itself feel more superficial is the attention to details that Herbert Senior usually left out. Example: the preparation of ships and storylines that explain missing details of the preceding books. It is funny to me how providing some of the missing details and logistics that tempted me only slightly to wonder how they pulled it off in previous books actually distracts from the story instead of adding to it.
I think it makes me question the characters and the storyline more, and I disconnect and feel displeased with the filling in somehow makes the story just too far-fetched to be relatable anymore. A comedic irony in a story of this nature, where thousands of years can pass between books and a child can become a massive worm-god who rules an entire universe that is connected by spaceships piloted by genetically and biologically altered fish-man creatures that live in tanks of spices infused liquids...or something like that- see how the lack of detail allows the brain to fill in the details to a satisfactory envisioning. So the details of the no-ship and how it got stocked, even if not much time is spent on it, can be distracting instead of interesting. At least to me.
And then the observations and connections between people, governments, religions, institutions; the clever quotes at the beginning of the chapters. So far, they miss the mark that Frank was splitting his own bull's-eye arrows on.
In Frank's versions of this universe and history, he focuses mainly on conversations between characters. I admit that can be hard to follow at times. And there is a lot of repetition of his head-of-the-nail-hitting points, proverbs, analogies, etc. But that repetition works and is itself fascinating, at least to me, for several reasons:
1. That is how we learn. Through repetition. And this repetition provides insight and warnings about our own institutional organizations that we need to individually and collectively scrutinize.
2. It somehow helps to build and maintain the characters and make them even a bit more endearing.
3. I hear in some of the repetitions the ruminations that come along with TBI or mania
4. If you follow the lines of those repetitions, he somehow gets deeper into what he is repeating as he goes. His characters are always learning or discovering something new, which breaks the monotony of repetition and somehow captures exactly why broken brains revert to ruminations that they often cannot escape...
...and this is fascinating to me on so many levels. Maybe Herbert Senior provides some answers to those trapped in their ruminations? Find what is different. Find what the rumination is trying to teach you. Pay attention to how it changes, what it inspires, what ignites it, what it responds to, why and how. What can change it... and maybe even let it play out over time or compare it to others... Use it? But also, there might be danger in that too. ...And that is one of the intriguing layers of depth and complexity that Herbert Junior is missing. But through no fault of his own and most likely to his benefit and good fortune. I'd not wish that level of depth and complexity onto him.
My scattered, unorganized, patchwork review now jumps to what I have been pointing out without saying thus far.
As I have listened to the Dune books that Frank Herbert himself wrote entirely, I have repeatedly been struck with familiarity with idea's, style, connections, depth, complexity, and the authors familiarity with those things that cannot be seen with the physical eye and those that cannot be put into word, but which he somehow puts into words well enough to bridge some gaps and to be identifiable to those who have themselves experienced similar ethereal realms and super less-natural understandings.
So naturally I had to dig a little into the life of Frank Herbert and without digging to deep, I found the obvious answer to how he has achieved this; while their is some talk of him dabbling in some of the recreational spices of this world that may and likely explains some of this prose, what I personally find more interesting and even more likely to be the crucible of his talent is this: "During 1942, after the U.S. entry into World War II, he served in the U.S. Navy's Seabees for six months as a photographer, but suffered a head injury and was given a medical discharge." (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Herbert).
"Aahh, there it is," I say to myself as I read this synopsis of the man who keeps describing elements and aspects of my own lives and experiences that I am inadequate at putting into words myself.
So then I read with this knowledge of similarities and his work becomes that much more interesting to me as I can see and feel in it TBI might have influenced his thinking and writing and it makes me even more curious about where the ideas that are not as familiar to me but just as intriguing may have come from and how they may have developed over the course of his life. I wonder about mania and if he had ever experienced that organically. I doubt he hasn't. His deep appreciation and connection to Vincent van Gogh, expressed in his last published book, cannot be denied. I know what he sees and feels, and I know why he had to include this in his book. And while I may not care for some directions, particularly the questionable sexual directions he takes at times, I am awe-struck by what he is able to organize and put into words despite his own honorably-discharging (aka ethically-discarding) TBI.
...Van Gogh and Herbert carefully stitching into Indra's Net the hard-earned beauty of these tragic human experiences and conditions; masterfully capturing in their enduring embroideries the immense worth of the souls who have to carry these heavy burdens that most people, governments, and institutions would rather simply cut out of the societal fabrics of The Net.
Sadly, the Pen is not Mightier than the Sword in an Oligarchical Bureaucracy bound to their easy traditions. But cut us out and you leave an immense hole; a void that will unravel the fabrics holding you together.
Sometimes the path of least resistance is not a path at all; it's a deep dark black hole of a void that sucks people in before they know that they have been sucked in at all.
Are you seeing my connection to my own ruminating confines? Do you see the messages to Intermountain Health, the Utah Courts, and the Administrative Office of the Courts?
They are governed by fear.
You are governed by Fear
Fear of me?
No. It is our common fear that governs you, the fear of losing your mind and abilities. A fear I have had to face and that I know the realities of. So why does that make you afraid of me? Because you fear that respecting and listening to me could put you closer to that? Because you fear it is contagious.
You know this is irrational, yet is this the bullying fear that is governing and driving you to keep fighting against me, even when it is fundamentally your job to protect me? Do you dare to question what they and you are doing to me and why?
Or is it simply your bureaucratic oligarchies and machinations to maintain the status quo of your power and prestige? Are you simply the corrupted and easily corruptible drawn to power? You admit my own power and potential for prestige in your opposition to me.
Or are you mere moths? Minuscule pests that cannot harness the power that you are drawn to and desire, while so innately driven by your lust that you will mindlessly keep flapping into the brightest sources, monotonously hitting your heads against the light that gives you nothing in return but a burnt body that sears the net holding you to those lesser but power sharing lights you are trying to out power.
