You haven't read Dune? Oooh. If you like it be sure to read Dune Messiah after that. :) I'd be interested to know what you think of it/them. It's been a long time since I read the first two books though so I don't remember everything.
Children of Dune is okay but it is/was a little too dense for me.
Oh, I have 100 Years of Solitude. Haven't read it yet though. Marquez's writing is just so dense - and I had to read two of his novels for Spanish Lit so I'm a bit burnt out on him right now. Good luck though.
100 Years of Solitude is an amazing book. One word of advise, though: have a bookmark and use it. It's a pretty non-linear book and if I put it down for a length of time I could never remember where I was.
I'd be interested in your opinions on Dune! It's long and dry, but there's some excellent writing there too. It was the first novel I ever seriously analyzed properly--thanks to my 11th grade English Honors teacher who was the first teacher I had who actually showed us how to properly analyze a novel, and gave us a workable definition of "irony".
Also, I think you've read some of the Wheel of Time, right? Because I think the entire Aiel subplot in book 4, and the Aiel people as a whole, were blatant rip-offs from Dune.
I read the entire first Dune series and was surprisingly a bit disappointed by it. I mean, it wasn't bad - I did finish the entire series after all. I think it had just been hyped up so much I expected something different and it was rather more distopian/pessimistic than I'd expected. Still rather interesting though.
Still need to read me some Gabriel Garcia Marquez as well.
*hmm...notices no one has commented on 'The Summer Tree'*
Dune is a bit of a mixed bag. I first read it when I was in junior high or thereabouts, absolutely got sucked into it and loved it to bits, then was so eager for more that I raced to the sequels...and found them all so utterly disappointing that I gave up after book 3 or 4 in disgust. The original is still enough of a nostalgic favorite that I reread it periodically, but I have never had any temptation to go back and try the later volumes again. I'm curious to see what you will think about it, because looking at it from a more critical adult perspective rather than a haze of nostalgia, it's a mixed bag. I still adore the depth of the worldbuilding, the political intrigues and the focus on ecological and environmental issues; there's also a lot of attention given to religious issues in these future societies, which is something I've often found lacking in a lot of SF, where many authors seem to presume that in the future everybody's going to have evolved past caring about such things. There's one society that's very vividly drawn, who are clearly heavily based on Islamic and Arabic models, are literally depicted as engaging in jihad against a more Western, colonialist empire...and they're drawn sympathetically, which is something I imagine would be pretty much seen as unpublishable if it had gone to the U.S. market post-9/11, rather than during the Cold War. BUT...there's a bit of skeevy Orientalism and "what these people need is a honky" syndrome going on in the main plotline that's rather uncomfortably close to Lawrence of Arabia with messianic elements. And I suspect this will be an issue for you, Herbert's treatment of women is pretty frustrating. There are some incredibly strong, appealing female characters who are full of awesome potential, but the text keeps undercutting them because Herbert cannot seem to write women outside of their relationship to men -- they're wives, concubines, girlfriends, daughters, mothers, and for all their brains and talents and skills they essentially are defined by and subordinate and self-sacrificing to their relationship with the men in their life. I didn't notice this as much when I was younger because at that point in time, just finding that many female characters who were active was refreshing, but now I can't help thinking how much more awesome it all could have been in the hands of a writer with a better grasp on gender issues. As Cho has recced to you in the past, I'd also suggest looking at Donald Kingsbury's Courtship Rite to see something that gives you a similar sense of a huge sweep of history, vivid cultural worldbuilding, realistically complex religious and political disputes, but all done by a writer who's better at keeping in mind that women are *people*, not just adjuncts and accessories for men.
I'm very curious to read Dune myself. I feel like I've heard it's not great with the women before, but again, it's such a classic of Sci-fi that I want to give the book a shot just to see what I think.
Hello there! Couldn't help but comment when I saw this - I highly recommend Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude. I;ve read and re-read the book about seven times now, and I'm still not tired of it - because each time I read it over, I notice something I hadn't noticed before. OHYoS is Marquez's best work, in my opinion - it's amazing!
100 Years of Solitude is awesome, but his best book is probably Love in Times of Cholera (El Amor en los Tiempos del Cólera, in Spanish, I'm not sure about the name in English). In this later book García Márquez perfected his non-linear style for sure, and the story and descriptions are incredible. If you like him you'll probably like Jorge Luis Borges (El Aleph and Ficcionario are my favorites) and Julio Cortázar, famous for Rayuela, though I would start with Bestiario. Also, please give mexican literature a try and read anything by Juan Rulfo, all of his work consists of a collection of short stories and a short novel, but it is magnificent, truly something to be read and reread. Good luck! -A lit fan
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Children of Dune is okay but it is/was a little too dense for me.
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(Anonymous) 2009-11-05 03:47 am (UTC)(link)no subject
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Also, I think you've read some of the Wheel of Time, right? Because I think the entire Aiel subplot in book 4, and the Aiel people as a whole, were blatant rip-offs from Dune.
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Still need to read me some Gabriel Garcia Marquez as well.
*hmm...notices no one has commented on 'The Summer Tree'*
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I'm very curious to read Dune myself. I feel like I've heard it's not great with the women before, but again, it's such a classic of Sci-fi that I want to give the book a shot just to see what I think.
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(Anonymous) 2009-11-10 05:28 am (UTC)(link)If you like him you'll probably like Jorge Luis Borges (El Aleph and Ficcionario are my favorites) and Julio Cortázar, famous for Rayuela, though I would start with Bestiario. Also, please give mexican literature a try and read anything by Juan Rulfo, all of his work consists of a collection of short stories and a short novel, but it is magnificent, truly something to be read and reread.
Good luck!
-A lit fan
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