Concubine Queens (Dune Finale)

Thinking Man Book Club Week 5

Melissa’s Comments:

Thank the Lisan Al-Gaib, it’s finally over.

I hated this book. I want back the hours I spent on this book. I don’t know what value anyone sees in this thing. It’s not fun. It’s not thought-provoking. Any promise that it showed of being fun or thought-provoking was stamped out immediately like some sick, twisted joke. Seriously, any time there could’ve been some kind of suspense, the Princess Irulan comes and spoils the whole thing (my favorite example of this is when Alia is captured, providing a rare bit of intrigue, and then the chapter ends and the next one immediately reveals that she lives via an annoying italicized quotation from “Arrakis Awakening.” Come on, why are we reading this thing?).

It really wouldn’t have been all that suspenseful, anyway. It’s impossible to care what happens to any of these characters. They all sound the same, they all act the same. The only ones who exhibit anything resembling actual traits are the Lady Jessica and Baron Harkonnen, and even then, they can be summed up in three words (for the Lady Jessica: badass concerned mom; for the Baron: creepy old perv).

The book went on and on, only for the entire plot to be hastily wrapped up in like fifteen pages in the dumbest way imaginable. The ‘climax’ of the book (identified as such because Paul actually declares, “This is the climax,” and thankfully, too—otherwise I genuinely may not have known), Feyd-Rautha actually strips down to nothing but a girdle and fights Paul and dies in the matter of a page and a half.

To be fair, Paul’s “This is the climax” quote is actually a decent statement on martyrdom. The full thing goes like this:

This is the climax, Paul thought. From here, the future will open, the clouds part onto a kind of glory. And if I die here, they’ll say I sacrificed myself that my spirit may lead them. And if I live, they’ll say nothing can oppose Muad’Dib.

Not a bad thought—that once you reach a ‘messianic’ level of fame and glory, nothing can oppose you. The only problem is that you don’t actually get this from reading the actual story. Like everything else in this book, the action is pointless and empty, and Herbert tells you everything that’s important after the fact.

The line also might’ve had more power if the words immediately preceding it weren’t “a fighting girdle with a mail core.”

And then the ending. Oh, god, the ending. The whole thing wraps up into a rosy, impossibly optimistic ending in which the prison planet turns into a lovely place and Arrakis can have plenty of water, after all (potential for social commentary about the distribution of scarce resources be damned).

Then it ends with this gem of a concluding line, spoken by Paul’s mother to his mistress (ahem, concubine) as reassurance that even though Paul is taking another wife, his heart will always be with her:

“Think on it, Chani: that princess will have the name, yet she’ll live as less than a concubine—never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she’s bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine—history will call us wives.”

If anyone reading this was spared the torture of reading this whole book—yes, the book ends with this. Also, poor Princess Irulan.

Now, since I don’t really know what to say, let me pull a Frank Herbert and just end the discussion here.

John’s Comments:

Oh man. Here we are, the conclusion of our latest TMBC. This one had everything.

— Murderous two year old with better public speaking prowess than I could ever hope for.

— Concubines galore.

— A 15 year old boy turning into a superhuman ultra mecha badass savior genius guru god, father, and tender lover all within two years.

— Villains built up for 600 pages, only to be killed off in a single sentence (which you might have overlooked as you gasped desperately for the energy to keep reading).

Need I go on?

We didn’t like the book. For that, I’m sorry. But Melissa and I can’t be the only two people to hate this thing, and judging from our discussions here, we haven’t been. A quick Goodreads lookup shows this as well—hidden under millions of positive ratings, of course. I have to imagine there have been quite a few people who picked up this classic over the years, gave it a try, and swore off reading altogether after trying to make sense of Herbie Fully Loaded’s mess.

Over 600 pages to get through, and the entire ending was explained to us within the first chapter. To build the entire book up so slowly over the first 600 pages just to end it in 17 as if ripping off a Band-Aid was crazy. Feyd-Rautha had a few chapters dedicated to his rise toward a showdown with Paul. Suddenly, he pops out of the emperor’s entourage at the ending, only to quickly strip into a diaper and get killed by Paul a page or two later. He might as well have not been included in the story at all.

The Baron’s death was out of nowhere, too. In the middle of me trying to make sense of an emperor of the entire galaxy and Baron Harkonnen negotiating with a 2 year old, I realized I had just read his death scene. Huh? Did that just happen?

It did. In fact, “what just happened?” is a common thought throughout the book. Herbert beats the horse to death on a ton of the most obvious aspects of the book, while glossing over other majorly important details in a single sentence with no explanation.

As badly as I wanted it to end, I was shocked to have sat through this behemoth only for the entire rug to be pulled out from under me so suddenly.

And then, after I finished the thing, I realized that there were still three appendices left to read. Turns out, Appendix I is better written and more interesting than anything from the actual story (of course, II and III went back to the same old slog).

Well anyway. I didn’t like it. Sorry, Daniel. I tried. Please don’t hate me for it.

Now. I’m excited to start The Name of the Rose as the next book club piece. But before we go, we’d like to go over some highlights of Dune.

Queue our ‘blooper reel’—the most outlandish scenes from Dune:

• “Yueh! Yueh! Yueh!” goes the refrain. “A million deaths were not enough for Yueh!”

• “I’ll be in my sleeping chambers,” the Baron said. “Bring me that young fellow we bought on Gamont, the one with the lovely eyes. Drug him well. I don’t feel like wrestling.”

• Feyd-Rautha, a man to follow and die for. The boy will know by that time how to oppress with impunity. I’m sure he’s the one we need. He’ll learn. And such a lovely body. Really a lovely body.

• To set the scene for this one, picture a prodigious two-year old girl being interrogated by an emperor of an entire universe and an evil baron as though she were an adult:

  “I have her, Majesty!” the Baron shouted. “Shall I dispatch her now-eeeeeeeeeeeh!” He hurled her to the floor, clutched his left arm.

  “I’m sorry, Grandfather,” Alia said. “You’ve met the Atreides gom jabbar.” She got to her feet, dropped a dark needle from her hand.

• Now, with the entire empire at stake, Paul is trying to get the emperor to relinquish the throne to him. Suddenly, a side argument between Paul and Gurney Halleck—hitherto a badass and loyal swordsman and one of the most actually stomachable characters of the book—commences:

  “You promised me a Harkonnen!” Gurney hissed, and Paul marked the rage in the man’s face, the way the inkvine scar stood out dark and ridged. “You owe it to me, m’Lord!”

  Alas, Gurney’s entire character has devolved into a driveling idiot in one line, thus ending the book without a single likable character to be found. We wouldn’t have expected anything less, honestly.

• Let’s not forget about Feyd-Rautha attempting to hip-thrust his way to a victory over Paul during the ‘climax.’

And, of course, the finale—your payoff for reading all 617 pages:

• “While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine—history will call us wives.”

There you have it. The end of Dune. Finally. Check back next week for an introduction to The Name of the Rose, which we can only hope will actually be worth your time.