"dune -- the battle for arrakis" what a trip down the memory lane! it had one of the best game soundtracks ever made. command and conquer, starcraft and warcraft all came a few years later and copied everything they did right. but dune was way too iconic. okay... perhaps command and conquer came close enough. i still remember siding with the global defense initiative because the name sounded way too cool. someone oug…
Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
61–70 of 74 posts
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#62i 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…
Who would have thought the descendants of the Puritans would be using words like yoga, karma, avatar or reading the Bhagavadgita? Or there is the joke that the four branches of Judaism are Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Buddhist etc.
Mostly this is taking place at an individual not communal level at the moment but given a long enough time scale I could see it happening.
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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.
As you say, the contact has left a huge body of work. Combing through that knowledge is an extensive undertaking, and what methods you use will lead you to different places.
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#64I'm surprised they don't mention the Dune prequel titled "The Butlerian Jihad," written by Frank Herbert's son according to the former's notes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butlerian_Jihad
Perhaps because it was indescribably awful.
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#65>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.
That... fairly clearly is at least part of what Herbert was going for, though?
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#66This has all the hallmarks of content generated under contract to collect hits. It is a micro industry providing piecework to people who can write but are otherwise not employable, e.g. due to location. I love the honesty though:
>
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#67Earlier 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.
>Perhaps but to me this still implies the idea that the arab and muslim worlds are somehow mysterious in the West.
An idea which is totally true...
>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.
And yet, the knowledge of it, for the vast majority (even if they have Ph.Ds on unrelated topics) is superficial at best. You'd be lucky if they know Avicenna, Omar Khayyam (funnily, both Persian muslims) or the Moors...
(Well, in the US that's also true for all kinds of world cultures, with the exception of Japanese anime-related culture).
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#68i 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…
Who would have thought the descendants of the Puritans would be using words like yoga, karma, avatar or reading the Bhagavadgita? Or there is the joke that the four branches of Judaism are Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Buddhist etc. Mostly this is taking place at an individual not communal level at the moment but given a long enough time scale I could see it happening.
>Who would have thought the descendants of the Puritans would be using words like yoga, karma, avatar or reading the Bhagavadgita?
Don't underestimate them! With enough marketing and dilution of concepts, and a few celebrity/rich people endorsements, they can consume shallow feel-good products made from any ancient culture (as long as they don't have to make any real commitments to said culture of course).
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your post was downvoted based on peoples' silly biases against the idea of anybody but the original author contributing to a sci-fi universe.
> Implying implications A more likely reason is that most of them are really badly written. The books feel as though the writers wanted to make a quick cash grab using existing IP, but completely misunderstood what the exact appeal of the original works was.
the writers wanted to make a quick cash grab using existing IP, but completely misunderstood what the exact appeal of the original works was
See also the reboots of Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr Who...
Re: Arabic and Islamic Themes in Frank Herbert's “Dune” (2004-2017)
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't speak for what bugged the above poster, but that sentence is worded in an incredibly awkward way.
Not really. English your first language? I’d take out the last comma and that’s it
Eh... The phrase "symbolic about" is weird. "X is symbolic" is fine, and "X symbolises Y" is fine, but "X is symbolic about Y" is unusual at best.
I'd probably go for something like "The novel can be read as an allegory for the dependence of the West on oil, and for the power struggles which arise to control this valuable resource." I think that expresses the point in a clearer way, and is more idiomatic.
But the author's version is clear enough, even if sounds to me like something a native speaker probably wouldn't come up with on their own.