Not only are there Islamic/Arabic and Jewish themes, there are also Persian themes. Padishah in "The Padishah Emperor" comes from Persian and means king.
Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
51–60 of 74 posts
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a number of religious themes blended in Dune . The main religious text is the Orange Catholic Bible, which by name implicates Catholicism/Christianity, but also includes Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism. It even includes hypothetical blends of Islam/Buddhism and Christianity/Buddhism. Frank Herbert never fully explains how all religions eventually ended up blended into one, but he does explore the religion quit…
'Catholic' does not neccessary refer to Roman Catholic and/or Christianity. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_(term)
It does 99.9% of the time, with the 0.1% exception coming from people that are being pedantic. The Wikipedia page you linked to is part of a series on Christianity, and it's pretty clear in Herbert's writing that the Orange Catholics do have Christian influences (alongside the previously mentioned Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism).
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#53> It is amazing that Frank Herbert would be exposed to this term, and make use of it. This sort of summarizes the article. The author is apparently unaware that Frank Herbert had wide and varied interests and did an enormous amount of research for the books.
Or they are completely aware that Herbert did vast amounts of research, and they are still impressed at some of the things he encountered.
Perhaps but to me this still implies the idea that the arab and muslim worlds are somehow mysterious in the West.
I don't know how true that was in the USA but certainly Europe has had more than a thousand years of intimate contacts with the arab world, which is not mysterious at all.
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#54>The novel is symbolic about the dependence of the West on the oil, and the power struggles to control this valuable resource. Very first paragraph, and already a turn-off.
I hadn't really thought about that aspect before, but it is maybe not a coincidence that OPEC was founded in 1960 which would be around when Herbert was thinking about / researching Dune. I recently started re-reading it and IMO it still seems really fresh despite its age. A classic.
Yep. From Herbert:
> The scarce water of Dune is an exact analog of oil scarcity. CHOAM is OPEC.
(Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20080616111957/http://www.duneno...)
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#55Not only are there Islamic themes, there are also Jewish themes. The name "Kwisatz Haderach" is based on Hebrew. (This is mentioned in the list.)
In the later books, perhaps the ones by Brian Herbert, they discover a planet of Jews, mostly unchanged for 15,000 years, except they have created some self-fashioned bene gesseret-like women.
last Frank Herbert book Chapter House Dune and from what I remember it was more like an underground society of Jewsish people who kept their beliefs completely unchanged over the thousands of years, as opposed to all the other religions and societies. I think it was politically organised along matriarchal lines but there were still male rabbis. I shoul read it again it's been decades!
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#56i wonder if there was a general feeling in the 80s or so that the shrinking of the world - through the internet or whatever else technology people of the 80s may foresee - would cause the world views of different communities around the world to become more syncretized, in the same way you have various diaspora e.g. Chinese-American, Italian-American, Chinese-Indonesian cultures having plenty of cultural and religious…
I don't know, I feel there is a new population segment of "Internationals". We speak mostly English despite coming from various countries, usually share a lot of interests and lifestyle, and usually have very similar, progressive values. I honestly have more in common with a Chinese or Indian International than a rural christian from my own country.
This is a very privileged minority though, and it is unclear, if this process will continue and extend across more segments of the population,
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not. Kevin J Anderson is basically the sci-fi equivalent of a grave robber, in my view.
Penny Arcade went a little further: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/10/15 (with justification, imo - the crudity and stupidity of the "Extended" Dune universe books warrants this level of snark)
Butlerian Jihad didn’t seem that awful at the time (I was 12), but oh boy was “Paul of Dune” ever an unworthy installment.
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#58“This article is not meant to be a literary nor an exhaustive topical critique of the novels, which I am cannot fully do, because simply, I did not read the original novels. ” Why is this highly rated on HN then?!
On a tangential note, your post reminded me that I should go read "How to talk about books you haven't read", at least for the peace of mind, if not anything else.
You should certainly talk about it, anyway (and you're doing it already, so, great!).
Jokes aside, that's a surprisingly good book, and the ideas it presents are quite useful in a number of seemingly unrelated life contexts.
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or they are completely aware that Herbert did vast amounts of research, and they are still impressed at some of the things he encountered.
Perhaps but to me this still implies the idea that the arab and muslim worlds are somehow mysterious in the West. I don't know how true that was in the USA but certainly Europe has had more than a thousand years of intimate contacts with the arab world, which is not mysterious at all.
>Europe has had more than a thousand years of intimate contacts with the arab world, which is not mysterious at all.
How familiar do you think most of Europe would be with tenth century Islamic theology? It's not mysterious, but it also isn't well known either.
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps but to me this still implies the idea that the arab and muslim worlds are somehow mysterious in the West. I don't know how true that was in the USA but certainly Europe has had more than a thousand years of intimate contacts with the arab world, which is not mysterious at all.
>Europe has had more than a thousand years of intimate contacts with the arab world, which is not mysterious at all. How familiar do you think most of Europe would be with tenth century Islamic theology? It's not mysterious, but it also isn't well known either.
The point is not that it is well-known by the public at large but that someone interested in the topic will find a huge body of work and knowledge on it because of the extensive contacts over time.