Dune Messiah (Dune Saga #2) by Herbert

I read this book quickly and it didn't give me any reason to think deeply about anything.

I will say, though, that it was much better than I thought it would be.  It doesn't have the same depth as the first book, but it's still on OK read.  After reading Dune I saw a quote from Herbert: "The bottom line of the Dune trilogy is: beware of heroes."  The second book makes a little more sense if you keep that in mind.

Dune by Herbert

I read this book before, maybe ten years ago, and have counted it among my favorites ever since.  Reading through a second time, I realized how many things I missed in my first reading and that this book is a lot more interesting than I thought.  In my younger years, my skills as a reader and a thinker were not as good, and rereading Dune reminds me of my desire to reread many of the books I read in my teen years.  Also, it supports my belief that young people shouldn't be urged to ingest literature before they are capable of getting something out of it. (Even better example: The Scarlet Letter.)

One thing that is done very well in this book is the balance between plot and description.  This is one of my personal pet peeves about so many writers, that they provide so many details to set a scene or establish a mood but I as a reader don't feel convinced that they are worth my time and energy to take in.  Also I feel that the reader should be given the freedom of a little wiggle room for the imagination; if the details are not relevant, then the author does the reader a disservice by fixing them.  In many books I skip/skim a paragraph if I realize that it's describing a character looking at a fence, or describing the room in which a meeting takes place, or some other stupid little thing.  In Dune, I really felt like I received a rich setting, and I could easily imagine in my mind the places and people in the novel, but I wasn't bogged down.  Somehow the writer earned my trust that each paragraph was worth reading, and I did very little skimming.

I also enjoyed the subtle politics and relationships that are a central part of this book.  What does it take to deceive someone?  What does it take to inspire perfect loyalty? When does logical reaction to the odds turn into treachery? When does a man stop being a son, lover, warrior and start being his own legend?

A couple negative things: the book is very heavy on its internal system of religion, legend, and prophecy, which can be a bit tedious at times.  The end was not satisfying, it seems clear that Herbert had the sequels in mind when he finished this book.  I haven't read the sequels before, but I will, even though I'm always a little afraid of reading sequels.  If I like the first book enough to want to read the second, I don't want to have my experience of it ruined by a crappy follow-up.

A small note: I noticed he took some things from real existing religions of course, but I wonder how my reaction to his using the word jihad for something in the book is different from the reaction he intended back in the 60s?

Brave New World by Huxley

(Blog note: I'm trying to write more meaningful posts from here on out for the following reasons: to force me to think more about what I'm reading, to get a little writing practice, and just in case anyone else reads this blog in the future.  Considering this, posts may not be in order of finishing, and may get edited a bunch - I haven't written non-technical pieces in a long time!)

This classic by Huxley was published in 1931.  It's made multiple "best novels" lists and judging by my experience working at a bookstore, it must be typical reading for some college courses (we always had this book in stock, in higher quantities than many others in the same category).  Surely it's well-studied and excessively analyzed by experts.  My goal here is not academic, but to give an outline of how this casual reader experienced the novel.

Brave New World falls into the genre of dystopian novels since it describes a future world which Huxley must have assumed the reader would find undesirable, if not alarming.  People live in a drug-soaked haze of total comfort, with no unmet desires.  Originality, individuality, emotional attachment, frugality, and nature itself are among the things vocally despised by the citizens of this future London.  The pleasure of sex has been severed from emotion and reproduction (which is taken care of in giant factories), and people are encouraged to have sex frequently and swap partners frequently.  The baby factories are just the beginning of a mass-produced life cycle; dozens of identical humans are bred to perform their function perfectly, then conditioned chemically and through sleep-learning to be happily conformist.  Even though higher-level persons are well aware of this conditioning, they do not fight it but rather embrace it.

Into this world comes John the Savage, who is found in the uncivilized zone by slightly rebellious Bernard and brought back to London.  John's reaction to the society around him is the main focus of the second half of the book.

I think the main point of this book is to show us the future setting that Huxley envisioned.  We often imagine how a catastrophic war or environmental disaster could bring an end to happiness as we know it, but there is more than one way to skin a cat, as they say.  Huxley shows us how the complete opposite - lack of any struggle whatsoever - could also bring about our downfall.

Personally I didn't particularly enjoy reading this, although I truly wanted to because I liked the premise. The writing style just didn't click with me, it really felt like I was reading something for english class.  If you want to read about depressing things happening in the future (here I am lumping together dystopian and post-apocalyptic novels) then I can attest to more enjoyable options.

The Mists of Avalon by Bradley

Reading this book is a very personal and heart-wrenching experience for me. It's my second time through this story, and it was just as powerful as the first time. I see so much of myself and the people in my life in the characters, and I can't help but get really into it. The religious themes mimic my own personal journey on that topic. I cannot even consider this book on a literary level because the content is just too personal.