J. R. R. Tolkien Admitted to Disliking Dune "With Some Intensity" (1966)

"One can eas­i­ly imag­ine a read­er enjoy­ing both and . Both of those works of epic fan­ta­sy were pub­lished in the form of a series of long nov­els begin­ning in the mid-twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry; both cre­ate elab­o­rate worlds of their own, right down to details of ecol­o­gy and lan­guage; both seri­ous­ly (and these days, unfash­ion­ably) con­cern them­selves with the theme of what con­sti­tutes hero­ic action; both have even inspired mul­ti­ple big-bud­get Hol­ly­wood spec­ta­cles. The read­er equal­ly ded­i­cat­ed to the work of J. R. R. Tolkien and Frank Her­bert turns out to be a more elu­sive crea­ture than we may expect, but per­haps that should­n't sur­prise us, giv­en Tolkien's own atti­tude toward ."

""It is impos­si­ble for an author still writ­ing to be fair to anoth­er author work­ing along the same lines," Tolkien wrote in 1966 to a fan who'd sent him a copy of Her­bert's book, which had come out the year before. "In fact 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.""

"That lack of elab­o­ra­tion has, if any­thing, only stoked the curios­i­ty of Lord of the Rings and Dune enthu­si­asts alike, as evi­denced by t his thread from a few years ago on the r/tolkienfans sub­red­dit. Was it the mate­ri­al­ism and Machi­avel­lian­ism implic­it in Dune's world­view? The pre­pon­der­ance of invent­ed names and coinages that sure­ly would­n't meet the ety­mo­log­i­cal stan­dard of an Oxford lin­guist?"

Lord of the Rings and Dune are epic fantasy series published as long-novel sequences beginning in the mid-twentieth century. Both construct elaborate invented worlds with detailed ecology and languages. Both take seriously the question of what constitutes heroic action. Both have inspired multiple big-budget Hollywood spectacles. Tolkien wrote in 1966 that an author still writing cannot fairly judge another working along the same lines and stated that he disliked Dune, preferring silence rather than commentary. That lack of extended public commentary intensified fan curiosity and sparked debates about Dune's materialism, Machiavellian elements, invented names, and aristocratic themes.

Read at Open Culture