Doomed to Dune

Learning works both ways: I teach students and students teach me. Sometimes their papers remind me of pleasures I've long forgotten, like playing jacks at recess or watching Scooby-Doo on Saturday morning, and sometimes they inspire me to read something I've never read. A few years ago a capstone student wrote a paper on House of Leaves and I felt obliged to read it so I could offer appropriate guidance, an experience I've never regretted. One of my current capstone students introduced me to Poe's Journal of Julius Rodman, which I look forward to reading if only to see how Poe plays with the conventions of the travel narrative.

And then there's Dune.

Yes, one of my students is writing about the Frank Herbert novel full of sand and spice and great big worms. I've read it before, possibly during my adolescent science-fiction phase or as an assignment in the science fiction class I took in grad school. I have a sort of love-hate relationship with science fiction, but rereading Dune is pushing me closer to the hate end of the continuum.

There is no denying that Dune is ripe for an ecocritical reading and I have no doubt that my student will produce a brilliant essay, but I don't find it fun reading--and not just because you can't even get to the first chapter without first wading through a thick glossary of names and nouns and references to historical events.

I skipped the glossary. I just don't have the energy to learn a whole new language right now.

And I'm tired of The Chosen One. Why does every science-fiction universe have to feature a Chosen One whose coming has been foretold through countless eons? And why does he have to be a raw adolescent with understanding beyond his years? And why does he have to have a half-dozen different names? The Desert Mouse, the Duke of Earl, the Dumpster-Diving Dynamo of Doom--can't anyone just call a hero Eric?

What irks me most in Dune, though, is the constant ominous tone. Every idle conversation hides a hidden meaning that may spell doom--DOOM!--for poor old Eric and his ilk. (Er, make that Paul.) Every breath our hero breathes might mean The End of the World As We Know It. If there's never a dull moment, then all moments are equally charged with potential disaster, which gets tedious. I keep wanting to grab Our Hero by the shoulders and tell him to for heaven's sake lighten up a little. Kurt Vonnegut knew how to infuse playfulness and humor into the bleakest science-fiction scenario, but Frank Herbert seems to have suffered from a severe deficiency of fun.

Unless you consider worm-riding fun. I'll admit that the giant worms are a nice touch. I just wish one of them would come along and swallow up the book so I won't have to finish reading it. I wouldn't even mind paying the library fine.