Book Swap: My Thoughts On "Dune"

What I Liked

Reading Dune didn't feel like I was reading a book that was written decades ago. The major themes of the book are still relevant to today, particularly the environmental ones. I was most surprised at the dominance of woman characters in the book--Jessica is a strong character, both in personality and in status. I was also surprised by the nontraditional relationships between men and women shown in the book, particularly that of the Duke and Jessica. Because this was written in a time period where for many women, marriage was preferable to having a career (can you tell I've been watching "Mad Men" lately?), this really surprised me.

I also liked the character development--it seemed like there were a lot of characters, but there was always the opportunity to understand their motives, their inner thoughts, and their relationships with the other characters.

What I Didn't Like

I have to say that Dune was very hard for me to get into. I had actually already started reading Dune on our plane trip back from Europe, and just couldn't connect with the story. I also put off starting it again for the book swap--Nathan finished Gone With The Wind at least a month and a half ago, and I just finished Dune recently. However, once the action got started, I couldn't put it down.

Oh, and the Baron really creepd me out.

A Different Perspective

I think the only science fiction book I have ever read is A Wrinkle In Time. The main reason I don't read science fiction is that I have a bad imagination. I imagine practical things, so taking me out of reality and putting me in a world where I have to imagine planets and places and a completely different life is hard for me. Also, I don't understand why techonolgy we have now is not available in the future. (Though Nathan informed me that they explain this further in the later books.) Thus, Dune really took me out of my comfort zone. But once I was able to stretch my imagination, I found I really enjoyed the story.

Book Swap: Nathan's Thoughts On "Gone With The Wind"

What I Liked

I felt like Scarlett is a woman before her time, as she’s extremely independent and strong-willed, and unlike the women surrounding her, she’s not afraid to go after what she wants—something that seems to be a social no-no. When Scarlett applies herself, she can do anything she wants, as she’s clearly intelligent and has the drive to succeed. What she doesn’t care about, she completely ignores. As a character, it’s hard to not like Scarlett, because I found it fun to read along as she plows the various challenges life presents her. Her character’s flaw of not caring about things that don’t interest her (politics, the war, making friends with other women, and considering what other people think about her actions) further add to her challenges, as they all seem to be key ways of life in the South). Through her faults, we learn about the South’s general perception of events and provide a good reason as to why Scarlett is able to succeed in times when everyone around her is falling apart. I also really liked how Margret Mitchell was able to create a story where the South comes alive. She paints a picture of a wonderful place where everyone is happy, including many of the slaves, because they are part of an idolized society where the world is nothing but parties and having fun. And despite how terrible the idea of slavery is, I found myself thinking that the South was a wonderful place that ended up being ruined by the Yankees, and all because Mitchell does such a good job of making everything in the South appear as a noble pursuit filled with honor and a sense of justice. To be able to take an ideal that’s so wrong and make it seem to be right is truly impressive writing.

What I Didn’t Like

The one thing I didn’t like about Mitchell’s writing was how she would randomly switch character perspectives. One moment Scarlett would be having some type of inner dialogue, and then, someone else would begin talking—but you don’t know who it is until a paragraph later. The writing style provides a kind of flow as it goes along, but as I’m used to Sci-Fi and Fantasy styles (where there are many characters and everyone is typically identified before they start speaking), I find that change to be confusing. Maybe it was the overall length of the story (though this is shorter than many of the Fantasy books I read), but the story also seemed to bog down after Scarlett marries Rhett. I found myself wondering how two people who were so in love appear to drift apart so quickly. It’s as if the moment Scarlett puts Ashley in charge of the mill, Rhett gives up on them as a couple. After he’s waited so long, it seemed out of character to me, but that’s just my opinion.

A Different Perspective

Gone With The Wind is a certainly a book that’s “out of my wheelhouse,” in terms of genre, but I certainly enjoyed it. I don’t have any problem with reading fiction, but when I read, I prefer to take myself to somewhere that I can imagine something I’ve never seen or thought of before. With some fiction, I find that reading about the normal lives of people don’t provide the type of mental release I’m looking for reading. With Gone With The Wind, I was able to imagine the beauty of the South and follow along with the “adventures” of Scarlet, which made the book tremendously enjoyable.

A Book Swap

In the dating world, not everyone gets what it is like to really, really, really love reading. So obviously, one of the first things I absolutely loved about Nathan was that he, like me, was (and still is) an avid reader. However, what we read is completely different. He reads, not exclusively but mostly, science fiction and fantasy. I read, well, basically everything BUT science fiction and fantasy.

Even though we don't read the same books, we can still talk about the books we're reading with each other in a general sense. But wouldn't it be more fun if each of us had more of a context of what the other was talking about? That's what we thought, too, and that's how we came up with a book swap: I would read a book chosen by Nathan and he would read one chosen by me. Here are the books we chose for each other and why we chose them. This week, we'll also both be sharing our thoughts on the book we read.

Whitney

Book Choice For Nathan: Gone With The Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

Why did I pick Gone With The Wind?
 I love Gone With The Wind. I can still remember reading it for the first time, and being in awe that I, like all of the characters in the book, was starting to hate the North. (Of course, not ACTUALLY, but that is the power of Margaret Mitchell's writing.) I also know that Nathan likes action and well-developed characters, and Gone With The Wind has both. It's also one of those "classics" that I think everyone should read, as it really sets the tone for the historical fiction genre.

Nathan

Book Choice For Whitney: Dune, by Frank Herbert

Why did I pick Dune?
First off, Dune is my favorite book of all-time, so I think it should be on almost anyone’s to-read list, if they haven’t read it already. Secondly, Frank Herbert is my favorite writer, and although not all of his works are masterpieces, in terms of plot, his ability to provide me with a sense of a character’s feelings and imagine how a scene looks is unparalleled with other Sci-Fi and Fantasy writers, in my opinion. Typically, Herbert is able to do so in only a few paragraphs, so the plot (which is a central to most Sci-Fi and Fantasy works) isn’t derailed by endless descriptions of landscapes and characters. In Dune, Herbert is able to combine the plot of a political thriller with a brilliant science fiction storyline that works in action, drama, and subtle mystery.