Interview with Frank Herbert and His Wife Beverly Herbert (1969) | Hacker News Reader

Interview with Frank Herbert and His Wife Beverly Herbert (1969)

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This interview is, among other very interesting threads of various ideas, like a capsule course in writing fiction from a master. It is well worth reading as it is not simply about the story, but rather how he put together a story, constructed layers and characters, and something like sketching out the mechanics of the dynamic between author, text, and readers:

FH: You see, and so we turn the whole thing whirling backward through the story. There was another thing there, in the pacing of the story, very slow at the beginning. It’s a coital rhythm all the way through the story.

WM: It’s a what?

FH: Coital rhythm.

WM: OK.

FH: Very slow pace, increasing all the way through, and when you get to the ending of it, I chopped it at a non breaking point, so that the person reading the story skids out of the story, trailing bits of it with him. On this I know I was successful, because people come to me and say they want more and…

It's a great read. Of course issues of power, structures of power, "the voice", and all things Dune are there as well.

Apparently one of Frank Herbert's many obscure inspirations was the book "The Sexual Cycle of Human Warfare" by N.I.M. Walter which argues that war is like a civilizational-level collective orgasm.

Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately hard to find a copy I just found out.

This is the kind of thing I find Archive.org and openlibrary invaluable for.

In this case a quick search didn't reveal it, but Google books has a scanned copy which you can use snippet view on so I wouldn't be surprised if there's a copy somewhere on archive.org

edit: hackernews regular gwern appears to have a digital copy of the book.

I found a digital copy that's probably converted scanned pages, better than nothing.

Considering that Walter appears to have not sold even the first printing of it (which is why copies of it are incredibly scarce - my guess is that most of it was pulped and only a few score copies ever sold, I still don't know how FH got one), I can assure you that you are not going to find anything better than my scan, and also that it's a lot better than nothing. (Someone needs to go through it & GEoD carefully, the influence is a lot greater than Dune critics previously realized.)

Thanks for your work, didn't mean to sound negative. Wasn't aware it's such a rare book.

Oh yeah. I had to wait somewhere between 5 and 10 years before a copy finally surfaced online for <$120. I was terrified as I spent the $28 that the seller was going to realize what a huge pricing mistake they had made and would cancel my order (which happens occasionally), or that I'd get a different book (also happens occasionally...). Still, I scanned it myself just because getting another copy would be so hard.

> "how he puts together a story, constructed layers, and characters," [..]

It is also a matter of involving syncretic ideas into the expanding dynamics to animate feelings fixedly and methodically. As Frank signifies, this book draws proportionately from the nature of sand, and how men (who have come to adopt religious attributions towards the climate, which begin from the autochthonous roots and expand to more complex 'felt' actions) behave in certain environmental conditions. This can be examined from the winding death of Kynes (the ecologist of Arrakis) as he comes to understand the futility of his efforts, and the fact that his planet only impassively accepted him as a submitted figure of service, a scene described as "important" for the overall significance of the story's political interpretation.

""" ... about the death of the planetary ecologist in "Dune" being a very touching spot, I think you said... a very moving... Well, I felt also it was a very significant point. A lot of the story swung around this: how the ecologist died. I thought it was very important that the planet killed the ecologist. Even though he planet... I mean, even though the ecologist was technically able to subdue anything within that... Well, there he lay dying. """

With this, you can begin to see the complex symbolism of most of the characters' traits and their responses to certain conditions. I fondly remember reading, in rather vagrant patterns between pages, Dune for the sake of understanding how these different interplays of ideas paved the methods of plot construction, nearly all of which seemed necessary to some extent to portray (in story and in sensation) contention, mystery and of course the parched, suffocating desert setting. The latter, which I have quoted, resounded with me especially. In light of the sudden reinterest for the Novel, I suppose I will be reading it more carefully this time around.

Another interesting point you mention is rhythm, both in meter (".. I wrote certain parts of it in haiku and other poetical forms, and then expanded them to prose to create a pace") and the progression of ideas. His slight bawdry way of describing it, these ideas arriving at a closing halt towards the end for a more evocative summarization and interpolation (satiation), even if these ideas sparsely appear in the peripheral mind after completing the novel, describes the connection quite fully. Of course, such an experience can only come from an honest reading of the work, and an appreciation of dynamics.

The interviewer is the guy who put together the Dune Encyclopedia---my preferred source of backstory for the series, much more interesting than the Frank Herbert stuff imo.

What makes Dune and Foundation scifi and not just feudalism in space? The Foundation TV show bores me to death and when I look up their summaries online, they both seem to be about lessons of past civilizations more than the future. A galactic emprire? The last time someone tried to pull this conquering stuff was almost 100 years ago and it was doomed from the start.

Dune is "feudalism in Space", and Foundation is "The decline and fall of the Roman Empire, in space".

Although, I don't really agree that they're "just" that.

> they both seem to be about lessons of past civilizations more than the future

Sure, writers are going to learn from the past and write about current concerns. Even Sci-Fi does that. Dune has

"this one drug is the most valuable thing in the galaxy ... and we mine it in the desert" - it's very 1960s.

> "this one drug is the most valuable thing in the galaxy ... and we mine it in the desert" - it's very 1960s.

Collection of hardline religious insurgents in desert defeat superpower? Very 2021.

(the inspiration is clear, e.g. Fedaykin => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedayeen )

Oh the new movie definitely has a look around the military vehicles and personnel that reminds me of recent middle-eastern wars.

That combo of religious tribesmen in desert robes with traditional weapons, on the ground; and expensive, hi-tec military hardware overhead, which has a distinctive look, is quite the contemporary version.

>>>What makes Dune and Foundation scifi and not just feudalism in space? The Foundation TV show bores me to death

A LOT of science fiction is "X in space". The Hammer's Slammers stories are "Vietnam in space". The Honor Harrington novels are "Napoleonic naval warfare in space".

I listened to Asimov's Foundation trilogy on Audible in the past 2 years and greatly enjoyed it. I hate the TV series. At this point I'm just watching the episodes to see how bad the trainwreck can get. Villenueve's Dune was like a palate cleanser for me Saturday. It's been 20 years since I read the book, but I grew up in the 90's with David Lynch's movie and always really enjoyed it. Dune 2021 felt like a faithful book rendition with some of the best visual/stylistic influences from David Lynch, but without his worst excesses of weirdness.

>>>The last time someone tried to pull this conquering stuff was almost 100 years ago and it was doomed from the start.

Arguably none of the conquest-minded leaders since the late 1700s have been successful, almost always because they've been fighting against larger economies of similar technological/industrial development. Also, offensive technology has become so destructive that closely-fought wars leave too much of the "target" economies completely devastated and not much of a prize. That doesn't mean a) tech won't develop to shift the balance towards protection (such as the shields in Dune) b) the next megalomaniac might start from a better existing powerbase, such as, say....China in 2050.

From the interview:

> FH: It’s my contention that feudalism is a natural condition of human beings…not that it is the only condition or not that it is the right condition…that it is just a way we have of falling into organisations. I like to use the example of the Berlin Museum Beavers. You ever come across this?

> WM: No.

> FH: Well my…the numbers are going to be wrong but it’s on this order… Before World War II there were a number of families of beaver in the Berlin Museum. They were European beaver. They had been there, raised in captivity for something on the order of seventy beaver generations, in cages. World War II came along and a bomb freed some of them into the countryside. What did they do? They went out and they started building dams.

> ALL: (Laughter)

> WM: Wow! Wow!

> FH: Now tribal organisation…feudalism is tribal organisation…

> WM: Oh, yes.

> FH: And that’s what I’m talking about. So, tribal organisation is a natural organisation of humankind. We tend to fall into it, given any chance at all, given the proper stresses, or given the proper lack of stresses.

Dune seems more like the middle ages in space, specifically the period of explosive Muslim expansion starting in Medina in the 630s. The empire he describes reminds me of the Umayyad Caliphate with a distant Emperor (Caliph) ruling over fiefdoms spread acrss the Mediterranean basin and beyond.

Feudalism is a social/political/economical system of society; it does not preclude fancy tech etc, which is generally considered to be the hallmark of soft sci-fi.

A lot of people are trying, they just stopped using guns, because a war is something you can lose. An economy is something you can slowly eat up over decades or centuries.

That's what conquerers like to think, that everyone thinks like them. It's just propaganda to legitimize them being the protector of the world.

To me it's more likely that there are these one or 2 guys who used to rule with this outdated view of the world, than to think that many are secretly puisuing such a vain and tedious thing as ruling the world

Well, Foundation at least was clearly written by someone who had just read Gibbon

Save you a right click: Edward Gibbon was an 18th century English historian who wrote a series of books called "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" . Parent suggests that said book was Asimov's inspiration for the fall of the Galactic Empire at the beginning of the Foundation series.

For a lot more background on his time on the Oregon coast at Florence (mentioned at start of interview), check out this Oregon Public Broadcasting story...

https://www.opb.org/article/2021/10/23/florence-oregon-movie...

audio of interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhw5vdH3rlo

Recorded in '69 and typed up in '97? Seems like there might be a story there as well!

Recorded in February 1969, typed in February-April, 1970, so not that much of a gap.

"Sent to Turkey in 1997" seems more like a publication date in Turkey than anything, given the site itself.

And two random Dune items on HN front page. Is this just clever gorilla marketing for the new movie / series coming out?

(TBH, I love Dune enough that I don't care. I just find it suspicious.)

I don't suspect guerrila marketting here, but more people interested are finding or remembering things and posting them because it's topical.

Guerilla marketting for Dune would be the reports of worms in the local park's new sandpit. Sadly, park department shut that down by replacing the sand with tan bark. :(

By complete chance I started rereading the books. Currently on the 5th. It lined up well with that movie being announced.

Having watched the movie: it's nailed the opening. Part two has me excited

I suspect Dune is loved by a large chunk of the HN demographic. In fact, IIRC I first heard of Dune in an Ask HN thread “what books do you recommend?” where it was one of the most recommended books.

When I saw the two Dune items, I thought that Frank Herbert had died.

It turns out that he did die. In 1986.

All of northern california is stuck inside with the first real rain we've had since ~April, catching up on indoor projects

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