Children of Dune by Frank Herbert
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book wraps up the trilogy, by critiquing the themes of the previous two Dune books. It does the expected thing of bringing all the characters together, while wrapping up the ending tightly. There is a bit of ridiculousness in Leto’s ability towards the end, and that seems like a deus ex machina, but that’s the only complaint. The ideas were at full force.
In a way, trilogies have to follow the initial good step, the mistaken second step, and the correction of the final step. The system of three follows why we get three lives in video games, why tripods have three legs for stability and why Hegel’s dialectic can be read as a three step process (although its really four steps, with three steps happening twice, overlaid on each other). Leto remarked on the calibration perfectly. We looking inward, at the end of the second book was Paul’s mistake, so the empire rotted. Looking outward, in the first book, with no sense of direction the empire expanded but the individual had no guidance. Paul walked into a self made trap through his error. I am not certain Leto does better, but with his twin sister perhaps that works.
Thus, we have the Preacher’s inward guidance with no external ability. We have Alia’s external ability but a rotten internal force. This bad reflection is corrected by the twin’s movement.
Typical of Herbert as well, he is able to guide self knowing mysticism as a genetic/spirit reality with the muster of political implication. The characters in their technological empires are less technicians of execution than they are forces requiring self knowledge. In a technological age when we have mastered all the materials (of space, food, shelter, &c) all technology becomes transparent to the core of our inner essence. Since our inner beings guide what technology does, and technology as a tool of the empire is the pure execution of a dictator, so must the elite come to know themselves if they are to be effective rulers. The people around them have less need to know themselves as they are focused outwardly, as technicians and policy implementers. Focused on outward action, this becomes an area where they covet power above them rather than focusing on knowing who they are.
I think this line of reasoning works well for at the top of the technological empire. In this sense, however, this book is less a book about the dune empire than it is for as a guide for inner peace.
Having read this book, the conclusion seems inevitable, although when I started it, it seemed completely without guidance, as in, what could the third book possibly be about? This is a sign of mastery, that Herbert wraps up the potentiality of the text beyond what at least I can see.
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