Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert (1920-1986) was an American science fiction author known for his work on the Dune saga. He is credited with pioneering a more literary approach to science fiction writing, as well as popularizing ecological ideals through his bestselling novel Dune.
Biography
Frank Herbert was born on October 8, 1920 in Tacoma, Washington. Growing up on his family's farm during the Great Depression, Herbert learned to catch and cook food in addition to his apprenticeship as a skin diver for his oyster-farming uncle. His grandmother introduced him to oral literature through folk songs and stories, and by the age of eight Herbert knew he wanted to become a writer. Inspired by his grandmother, the teenaged Herbert became known among his friends as a skilled storyteller. He attended Salem High School, where he became deeply involved with the school newspaper and would substitute for vacationing reporters in the Tacoma Ledger. He graduated from Salem High School at the age of 19 and began a career as a journalist for the Glendale Star after lying about his age.
Herbert married his first wife, Flora Parkinson, in 1940. They had a daughter named Penny, but Herbert soon joined the Navy as a photographer. He served in the Seabees until 1944 when he was given an early honorable discharge - Herbert would later credit his experience in the Navy with teaching him "a great deal about bureaucracy and bureaucratic incompetence" (Frank). Herbert divorced Flora Parkinson in 1945. That same year saw the first short story published under Herbert's real name, The Survival of Cunning. Herbert then began taking classes at the University of Washington to aid his fiction writing. There he met Beverly Stuart, another published author, in a creative writing class. The two were married in 1946, and Herbert dropped out of the University of Washington and continued his career as a journalist.
Herbert held a number of positions for a number of employers over the following years, including a brief job as a speech writer in Washington DC. In 1949 Herbert moved his family to Santa Rosa, California to work for the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat. There he befriended psychologists Ralph and Irene Slattery, who inspired Herbert to become a casual student of psychology and introduced him to Zen Buddhism. Herbert released his first science fiction novel, Dragon in the Sea, in 1956. The novel showcased Herbert's exploration of psychology and predicted a worldwide contest for oil, and though critically acclaimed was not a huge commercial success.
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Herbert began laying the groundwork for Dune by 1959. He had been amassing research for an article in Florence, Oregon on efforts to prevent shifting sand dunes from destroying the land. The article was never published, but Herbert kept his research and was able to devote all of his time to writing once his wife began working full time as an advertising writer. Six years later, Dune was published. It was an immediate critical success, blending "elements of religion, philosophy, politics, environmentalism, drug addiction, and evolutionary extrapolation" (Frank) and eventually becoming the highest selling science fiction novel of all time. Dune was not an instant best-seller, however, and Herbert was not able to become a full-time writer for a few more years. During this interim Herbert continued his career as a journalist, working for various publications and traveling to Vietnam and Pakistan in 1972 to work as an ecological consultant.
Herbert continued to supplement his bibliography with several works following Dune, including The Green Brain (1966), Destination Void (1966), and The Heaven Makers (1968), though he was unable to recapture the success of Dune. He continued work on the Dune canon with the release of Dune Messiah (1969), Children of Dune (1976), and God Emperor of Dune (1981). Dune saw a resurgence in popularity with a film release in 1984. Directed by David Lynch, the movie was a critical failure in the United States but achieved great success abroad and managed to expose Dune to a new audience. Herbert's wife Beverly died of cancer the same year, but he soon entered a final marriage with Theresa Shackleford. Herbert released his final work as a supplement to the Dune franchise, entitled Chapterhouse Dune. Herbert had promised one more novel in the series, but was unable to complete it before his death in 1986.
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Reception
"His dominant intellectual impulse was not to mystify or set himself up as a prophet, but the opposite – to turn what powers of analysis he had (and they were considerable) over to his audience. And this impulse is as manifest in Dune, which many people consider the all-time best science fiction novel, as it is in his computer book, Without Me You're Nothing." (Touponce 2)
Dune currently stands as the highest selling science fiction novel of all time. It is generally considered to be Frank Herbert's finest work, as well as one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written. Herbert's works following Dune were met with varying success and were often seen as sub-par - none managed to win either a Nebula or a Hugo award (Dune won both the Nebula in 1965 and the Hugo in 1966). Nonetheless, Herbert is credited with breathing new life into the science fiction genre by increasing its status in the literary community and using it as a vehicle for themes instead of ideas, as well as by crafting a world whose detail is comparable to J.R.R. Tolkien's "Middle Earth" (Wegierski).
"I dislike Dune with some intensity, and in that unfortunate case it is much the best and fairest to another author to keep silent and refuse to comment" - J R R Tolkien wrote in a Privat letter.
Adaptations
Frank Herbert had his series of novels named Dune adapted into film many times throughout the years. Three main adaptations has been made.
Dune 1984 directed by David Lynch was the first attempt at adapting Dune. Lynch's Dune was impressive for it's time when it came to visual affects, though they did not age well compared to star wars affects released a decade before. Dune 1984 also struggled with poor pacing. making the story feel choppy and inconsistent.
In the early 2000s the second adaptation of Dune was made. Starring Alec Newman, the Dune miniseries was able to tell the story in three parts. Part one of Dune is based on Dune. Ironic, i know. The second part tells the story from Dune messiah. The children of Dune was the last story explored by part three of the Dune miniseries.
Denis Villeneuve directed the most recent adaptation. Villeneuve has released two movies released in 2021 & 2024 so far. Both movies have only covered the first book, Dune. The plan is to make it a trilogy. The newest Dune was able to fix the pacing issue of the 1984 dune and the affects issues as well. Villeneuve has strayed from the original source materiel more then other adaptations.
Thematic Concerns
- The human tendency to blindly follow charismatic figures
- The relationship between religion, politics, and power
- How language shapes thought
- Human survival and evolution
- Human possibilities and potential
- Ecology
- The relationship between sanity and madness
Style
Having read all of William Shakespeare's works as a child, Frank Herbert was inspired by Shakespeare's use of blank verse disguised as regular dialogue. Herbert hid many poetic meters throughout the text of Dune, including sonnets, iambic pentameters, and haiku.
Movement
Frank Herbert's work is generally considered part of the "New Wave" movement within the science fiction community. New Wave writers were characterized by an increased artistic sensibility when compared to their predecessors, whose works New Wave authors often found juvenile or poorly conceived. They often discarded hard sciences - technology, physics, chemistry, etc - in favor of soft sciences - psychology, sociology, religion, etc in an effort to distance themselves from the "pulp" science fiction of the past.
Influences
- William Shakespeare
- Frank Herbert read all of Shakespeare's works as a child
- Many elements of Dune's story were directly inspired by Hamlet
- Frank Herbert adapted dramatic asides to show his characters' inner thoughts
- Frank Herbert borrowed Shakespeare's use of blank verse subliminally within larger works
- Sophocles
- Frank Herbert borrows the literary device of prophecy from Oedipus Rex
- Frank Herbert also borrowed several characters from Oedipus Rex: the blind prophet, the exiled hero, and the character who is blinded after the death of his wife
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Sigmund Freud hailed The Brothers Karamazov as one of the high points of human literature
- "The Grand Inquisitor" provided inspiration for Paul (Dune's main protagonist) and his development as a messiah character
Selected Works
- The Survival of Cunning (1945)
- Dragon in the Sea (1956)
- Dune (1963)
- Dune Messiah (1969)
- Children of Dune (1976)
- God Emperor of Dune (1981)
- Heretics of Dune (1984)
- Chapterhouse Dune (1985)
Quotations
"I think science fiction does help, and it points in very interesting directions. It points in relativistic directions. It says that we have the imagination for these other opportunities, these other choices. We tend to tie ourselves down to limited choices. We say, 'Well, the only answer is...' or, 'If you would just...' Whatever follows these two statements narrows the choices right there. It gets the vision right down close to the ground so that you don't see anything happening outside. Humans tend not to see over a long range. Now we are required, in these generations, to have a longer range view of what we inflict on the world around us. This is where, I think, science fiction is helping. I don't think that the mere writing of such a book as Brave New World or 1984 prevents those things which are portrayed in those books from happening. But I do think they alert us to that possibility and make that possibility less likely. They make us aware that we may be going in that direction."
"To attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing the Darkness. It cannot be."
"It is a wise man that does know the contented man is never poor, whilst the discontented man is never rich."
"The difference between sentiment and being sentimental is the following: Sentiment is when a driver swerves out of the way to avoid hitting a rabbit on the road. Being sentimental is when the same driver, when swerving away from the rabbit, hits a pedestrian."
"One of the best things to come out of the home computer revolution could be the general and widespread understanding of how severely limited logic really is."
Further Reading
Works Cited
- "Frank Herbert." Soylent Communications. Notable Name Database. Web. 2014.
- Touponce, William F. Frank Herbert. Twayne Publishers. 1988. Print.
- Wegierski, Mark. "Comparing the texts and 'realworld' contexts of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit / The Lord of the Rings and Frank Herbert's Dune." Enter Stage Right. Web. 2 Jul. 2012.
- “Every Dune Adaptation Ranked.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 29 Nov. 2021, www.imdb.com/list/ls501572583/.
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