/lit/ - Literature

>>18717395
God Emperor of Dune, Dune #4 -Frank Herbert (1981)

This book is different from the preceding three in terms of structure, though the same in terms of it being a deeply political and philosophical work. It also asks you to take a lot on faith, and it would seem many rejected that from the premise alone. That's reasonable. It can be very difficult to understand the beliefs of another without accepting or rejecting them.

Although it took a while for me to to feel it, I greatly enjoyed that it eventually felt like I was reading a mythos, which is exactly what it's intended to be given how the story is framed.

I found the diverse and divisive opinions on this book, as with the series overall, to be rather intriguing. I think a lot of it is misunderstanding, whether willful or not. Nothing else comes to mind that seems to have so many different combinations of engagement in significant proportion. Explaining that in detail is outside the scope of this writing though. Leto seems to be especially misunderstood, in negative sense that that may simply a matter of disagreeing on the value of intentions, and whether the ends justifies the means. He's also misunderstood in a positive sense, thinking that he's far more more than what he is, in that sense these readers have fallen for the presented propaganda as much as most any character in the book. I'm not exempt from not realizing I'm misunderstanding.

The strangest thing to me what how I didn't find any of what I read to be strange. I had been expecting the content to be more extreme and/or explicit, but that wasn't what I read at all. Admitting as such may be more self-incriminating than anything else. For example, as shown on the cover, one of the characters is decidedly non-humanoid. To which I say, yes, and? It doesn't really matter to me any more than other alien morphologies would. As for perversion? Overstated, which may be self-incriminating as well.

There are several choices and character motivations that may seem odd, especially near the end of the book, and I think that's because they become expressions of emotion. This reduced complexity certainly does harm them as believable characters as opposed to instruments of the author's will, though I was willing to overlook that. After all, Everyone except Siona is a puppet, even Leto, who is puppeting himself.

To me the overall theme was eventually releasing humanity from the bondage of determinism and allowing them to experience true freedom for the first time in existence. I didn't mind that how this was accomplished was never explained in the slightest, though usually I would. There was also much else The Golden Path was for, but that was what was seemed most important to me.

I believe how much we enjoy anything is a often a matter of how willing we are to overlook its flaws.

Rating: 4.5/5

One of my absolute favorite covers