Friday, April 11, 2008

Frank Herbert: Arrakis and Oil



In this rare interview, Herbert spells out the metaphor of water as oil (which also parallels the greater metaphor in Dune - the scarcity of resource, melange specifically). Having read the series twice, and remembering specifically the connection Herbert states as..."he who controls the spice, controls the universe," I find it compelling and prescient that he placed so much emphasis on Arrakis - and in that light it reads similar to Zbigniew Brzezinski's The Grand Chessboard.

He who controls Arrakis controls the spice. He who controls the spice, controls the universe. Sounds a bit like the Neocon attempt at global hegemony, eh? Arrakis as Iraq - and the spice as Oil...and the Padishah Emperor as the tragic ignorance of empire. Perhaps Herbert was only imagining possible futures, but it seems in hindsight that he imagined very well.

-reese

3 comments:

Shari Zollinger said...

I liked the references here. Liked the interview. Can we get more of it somewhere? Seemed it cut us off too soon. Would like to hear more of Herbert's actual explanations about Dune.

Mental Produce said...

I looked around for the rest of the interview, but couldn't find it...for that matter couldn't find any other video of Herbert available online. Too bad, really.

-r

ankesor said...

emperor shaddam. not only sees the future, just knows the future as it is and wrote a political epic dis/utopia.