Dune, Doom, and Destiny

It's embarrassing. How many times have I conversed with science fiction fans and writers, only to stop short when they assume I have, of course, read Dune.

I actually read the opening chapters of Dune several times. On each read, as Paul Atreides arrived on the desert planet Arrakis, and as the sense of doom surrounding his father and family built to the point of no return, a parallel sense of doom built in my personal life. Nothing truly awful ever happened to me. Usually my personal doom was an impending move, or a life change that made me anxious. In most cases the life change physically separated me from my paperback copy of Dune, which ended up packed in a cardboard box for so many months I lost the thread of the narrative. Dune became a source of superstition for me, a book that, when paired with me, lead to shaky and uncertain times.

To break my string of bad luck, and since my paperback copy still hasn't found its way back to me, I bought Dune in audio book format, and savored the whole novel slowly, with great pleasure. Even now that my life is tranquil, my heart still beats to the sense of doom Herbert builds in the opening chapters. The sense of doom surrounding Paul's father, and the escalating sense of Paul's inevitable destiny, rise to a fever pitch. So when it's finally time for an old life to collapse and a new future to rise out of the ashes, the effect is cathartic.

The inevitable sense of destiny, set in motion by a doom so heavy the hero cannot possibly escape it, is a critical element of any epic story. Empathy with the hero strengthens as the reader mentally squirms to find a way out of the inevitable. Herbert built this sense of empathy so well, and I empathized and identified so strongly, that it took me over ten years to accept my fate, and to finish Dune.