“I am starting a new series of articles. The phenomenon of recent days, the Dune novels and films… We will visit the arid lands of the distant future desert, get to know the author, travel through the Dune universe, and take a closer look at its characters. Meanwhile, although a million things have been written about Dune, we will share details that have not yet been written!”
Yes, I couldn’t resist for long…
I’ve decided to provide my own perspective on the recent phenomenon film (and therefore the novels) Dune. In this and the next few articles, I will try to discuss the Dune novels, the author, the Dune universe, the messages it contains, and the unseen and unnoticed aspects, in my humble opinion.
What will you see in this series of articles?
First, we will get to know Frank Herbert, the creator of the Dune universe. We will look at a comparative analysis of his great mind with another magnificent person, J. R. R. Tolkien. Then we will look into the formation of the Dune universe and take a peek at its books. (No joke, there are 38 books)
Later, we will delve into the universe, take a contemporary look at world history, embark on a journey in this universe and move 20,000 years forward. And we will come to the most fun part; we will reconstruct the story through the characters of the Dune universe, and discuss the good, the evil, the innocent, and the cowards. During this time, we will also look at some Dune concepts, examine Dune locations, planets, and touch on the narrative flow.
Perhaps at the risk of giving some spoilers, we will hint at how the story might evolve, then look at the films about Dune, and of course, a glance at the Dune series by Canadian Denis Villeneuve, who I consider one of the most important directors alive. We will examine these films in terms of cinematography, content, and metaphor, and after touching on some details that have hardly been mentioned before, we will conclude our series.
Let’s not drag the introduction out any longer and start right away…
Lesley Blanch (Born in 1904 and died at the age of 103 in 2007) was an English writer, historian, and traveler who had received an art education. As the article I benefited from most pointed out (which you can find here), Ms. Blanch’s life (who was involved in topics like fashion, beauty, makeup, and stage design until that age) radically changed when she met French novelist and diplomat Romain Gary. Together with her husband, she traveled to countries like the Balkans, Turkey, North Africa, Mexico, USA, and Russia. Due to this feature, she received the title “Time traveler.” Another turning point in her life was discovering Russian writer Alexander Herzen.
Wherever she went, she always took a book by Herzen with her. Writing was not unfamiliar to her by that time; she had written articles for magazines like Vogue and Harper’s, but they were daily trivial matters. With the end of World War II, she also stopped writing for these magazines and got married the same year. Especially her introduction to the American film industry discovered her talent for fiction. Here she developed family relationships with Hollywood stars like Aldous Huxley and Gary Cooper, Sophia Loren, and Laurence Olivier, but this bohemian life also marked the end of her marriage. Her husband left her for Jean Seberg, the famous lead actress of Godard’s renowned ‘Breathless’ film.
Blanch and her society-enthusiast diplomat husband Romain Kacew (later took the surname Gary) wrote her first bestselling novel ‘The Wild Shores of Love’ in 1954. In 1956, she won France’s most prestigious literary award, the Prix Goncourt, with her novel ‘The Roots of Heaven.’
And the year 1960…
She entered her publisher’s office on 5th Albemarle Street with a new novel in her hand. Later, she would call it “my good book,” ‘The Sabres of Paradise,’ which depicted the incredible life of a well-known real character: Imam Shamil.
The book, covering the years 1834-1859, discussed the conflict between the tribes of Dagestan and Chechnya, united under the charismatic leadership of Imam Shamil, motivated by freedom and faith, portraying the Caucasian warriors. The strict discipline of the Murids, dressed in black robes, waving black banners, and singing songs of death, was one of the noblest examples of resistance against injustice both in the modern West and East.
Indeed, the writing journey of the book took six years. During this period, Blanch conducted research in Russia and the Caucasus, even visited Turkey, and investigated the descendants of Shamil living in Turkey and Egypt. Lesley Blanch would pay the price of neglecting her home for this book, and her husband would leave her shortly after the book was published!
The book received tremendous feedback. General de Gaulle even congratulated her with a letter stating that “it is remarkable that a woman can understand wars so well and describe them so vividly.” Le Monde called it: “A magnificent historical drama; an exuberant biography of Imam Shamil,” The Guardian: “Truly magnificent battle, love, and intense death stories. . . This deep and exciting book turns the struggle of the Caucasian people to remain independent from Russia into a universal epic. . . It’s not surprising that Shamil had such a strong influence on Tolstoy and Pushkin.”, The New York Times: “We can’t imagine a better introduction to modern Russia!”
Let’s not forget this place, we’ll come back here. Because now it’s time for another writer…
Frank Herbert, born 15 years later than Lesley Blanch (Born in 1920 and died 20 years before Ms. Blanch in 1986) in America, Wisconsin. When little Frank was just 8 years old, when asked what he would be when he grew up, he said, “I will be a writer.” Coming from a poor family, he had to start working at 18. He worked as a freelance journalist for a while, and when World War II broke out, he joined the navy as a photographer. A head injury brought him back home as a war veteran. In 1940, he married for the first time, a union that would last 5 years. He remarried in 1946 (to Beverly Ann Stuart), and a year later, his son Brian was born. This Brian is significant because he would significantly expand the Dune universe inherited from his father.
Frank Herbert’s inspiration for his greatest project came during these years while he was living in Portland. The Dregon Journal had asked him to do a research. Just south of Florence town in Oregon, a strip of sand dunes between the Pacific Ocean and a thick forest of pines and firs was very interesting indeed. The sand dunes were literally walking, moving. Herbert soon realized that this desert was like a sea. The constantly shifting sand dunes were constantly reshaping; the ridges lasted only a few days, the entire sand mountains melted and reformed every year. Herbert wrote in his article; “You can’t walk on the same hill twice.”
Herbert (as he said in an interview in 1973) started reading science fiction about 10 years before he began writing, influenced by authors like H.G. Wells, Robert A. Heinlein, Poul Anderson, and Jack Vance. Since April 1952, he had written many short stories without much humor. And these stories were visualized in fantasy magazines like Startling Stories, Astounding Science Fiction.
The inspiration for Dune came from the Oregon dunes.
For a while, Frank Herbert was earning his living by writing short stories in cheap magazines. And on the last day of July 1960, the morning he picked up the New York Times newspaper would radically change his life. The newspaper had a tiny news article about Lesley Blanch describing Istanbul, the Bosphorus, and the mosques. The newspaper was promoting ‘The Wild Shores of Love.’
Herbert was intrigued by this interesting woman and soon reached her latest book, ‘The Sabres of Paradise,’ which was among the bestsellers in America.
As Herbert read ‘The Sabres of Paradise,’ different things began to emerge in his mind.
For one, the mountain concept in the book was very close to the sand dune concept Herbert had in mind.
He had found a role model to liken the hero of the novel he was going to write: Imam Shamil… He would dress like him, be as brave and self-sacrificing as him. To find a name, he again turned to another real-life personality: Saint Paul. He, too, like the character he was thinking of writing about, was first an enemy of the community he later became a part of and even an inspiration. The main character was now complete: Paul Atreides, imagined in an outfit resembling Imam Shamil…
In the final version of Dune, the resemblance to Imam Shamil was largely avoided, but David Lynch’s version of Paul resembled him more.
For example, this sentence from ‘The Sabres of Paradise’: “Polish comes from the city, wisdom from the hills.”
And this sentence from Dune: “Polish comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert.”
Or; “When God wants a creature to die in a certain place, He compels that creature to go there because of its needs.” – The Sabres of Paradise
“When God wants a creature to die in a certain place, He compels that creature to go there because of its needs.” – Dune
In the next article, I will discuss the events following the publication of Dune as a book and the Tolkien-Herbert comparison. Of course, I will also focus on the differences and similarities between The Lord of the Rings and Dune, thus entering the Dune universe.
