A Canticle for Leibowitz

This was an excellent post-apocalyptic novel that handled themes of the separation between church and state, the role of Catholicism worldwide, and both the beauty and danger of knowledge with creativity. While I liked this book immensely, I found some of its nonlinearity and poorly introduced characters to be a bit confusion, which led me to re-read sections to figure it out.

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

It???s the dark ages again. A 20th century nuclear war spawned a ???Flame Deluge??? which destroyed human civilization???s infrastructure and technology, killed most of the people, and created genetic mutations in many of the rest. Then there was a backlash against the educated people of the world who were seen as the creators of both the ideas that started the war, and the weapons that were used to fight it. They were persecuted and killed and all knowledge was burned up. After this ???Simplification,??? people took pride in being illiterate and the only institution that seemed to come through intact was the Roman Catholic Church.

Walter M. Miller Jr???s A Canticle for Leibowitz is divided into three parts, which were originally published as three separate stories. In the first story, ???Fiat Homo,??? which takes place 600 years after The Simplification, we find a cloister of monks who are applying to New Rome to have their martyred patron, an ex-electrical engineer named Isaac Edward Leibowitz, sainted. Leibowitz???s monks have been collecting, preserving, and copying fragments of the Earth???s previous civilization. As keepers of pre-Deluge history, they attempt to piece together knowledge and history, without knowing for certain what they???re looking at. One day, while maintaining a vigil of silence in the desert around the abbey, Brother Francis stumbles upon the entrance to Leibowitz???s fallout shelter containing precious relics, such as a circuitry blueprint and a deli shopping list. These relics cause quite a stir in the abbey.

???Fiat Lux??? begins 600 years later. Genetic mutations caused by the fallout are still affecting mammalian DNA, and the monks of St. Leibowitz occasionally wonder whether there really ever was an advanced civilization on Earth, but progress is gradually being made. This is especially true in the abbey of St. Leibowitz where the monks are safe from the tribal wars that are common in surrounding Texarkana. Their studies of the fragments they???ve been collecting have prepared them to ignite a new renaissance.

Another 600 years pass. In ???Fiat Voluntas Tua,??? humans, though still affected by ???genetic festering,??? have reached the pinnacle of civilization and culture, progressing beyond what had been experienced before the nuclear war in the 20th century. But there???s been a cold war going on for 50 years between the two world superpowers and they both have nuclear weapons. At the abbey of St. Leibowitz, the monks wonder if humans are destined to repeat the cycle and, as keepers of the world???s knowledge, what is the abbey???s responsibility to humankind?

“Are we doomed to do it again and again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise and fall? ???. Are we doomed to it, Lord, chained to the pendulum of our own mad clockwork, helpless to halt its swing? This time, it will swing us clean to oblivion??? Back then, in the Saint Leibowitz??? time, maybe they didn???t know what would happen??? They had not yet seen a billion corpses. They had not seen the still-born, the monstrous, the dehumanized, the blind. They had not yet seen the madness and the murder and the blotting out of reason. Then they did it, and then they saw it??? Only a race of madmen could do it again.”

Obviously, the main theme of A Canticle for Leibowitz is the repetitive cycle of human history and the role of our advancing knowledge and technology in our own destruction. This provides the reader with plenty to think on, but Miller also addresses issues that the Roman Catholic Church has tackled during its history, such as its role in state politics and its insistence that euthanasia is a sin. While the novel is meant to be a serious consideration of these ideas, and while its predictions and warnings are frightening, A Canticle for Leibowitz still manages to be amusing and agreeably quirky all the way through. Though there???s a powerful and unforgettable message here, it is the irreverent, eccentric humor that makes it so enjoyable to read.

A Canticle for Leibowitz is a classic piece of post-apocalyptic science fiction that had mass cross-genre appeal when it was published in 1960, won the Hugo award in 1961, and has never been out of print. Thus, it???s a must-read for any true SF fan. I recently tried the audio version which was just released by Blackstone Audio and narrated by Tom Weiner. Audio readers, even if you???ve read A Canticle for Leibowitz before, you won???t want to miss Blackstone Audio???s first-rate production of this imaginative, chilling, and humorous novel.

Walter Miller Jr fought in World War 2, mostly as a radio operator and rear gunner, and was present at the destruction of what was then the oldest Abbey in the world at Monte Cassino. Fifteen years later he wrote A Canticle for Leibowitz, a science fiction novel clearly inspired by his wartime experiences.

Split into three parts, the first part opens with a monk, Brother Francis, enduring a hermitage in the desert amongst the ruins of a former civilisation when he encounters a old man who disturbs his peace, causes him to break his vow of silence and leaves after pointing him to an underground bunker where he finds relics of the blessed Saint Leibowitz. These take the form of blueprints and other artefacts of the 20th Century. For there has been a nuclear war and the remnants of humanity have been blasted back to barbarism after “The Simplification” where scientists are persecuted and books burned. Only the rump of the Catholic Church remains to carry the light of reason and knowledge (even if that knowledge can no longer be deciphered) for future generations.

There is great debate over the veracity of the Leibowitz relics, causing Brother Francis much hardship from his somewhat vindictive Abbott. Eventually New Rome holds a hearing and gives judgement. They are considered real and are added to “The Memorabilia” as the monks call them.

Next we jump forward in time several hundred years. Humanity has made advances in rediscovering old knowledge. But a warlord called Hannegan, who seems himself as a would-be emperor, pushes for war to consolidate his power, even as electricity is rediscovered and the natural philosophers unlock the secrets of the world. In the Abbey a new Abbott receives Thon Taddeo, greatest of the new natural philosophers so that he can study the Memorabilia. The world is emerging from darkness into the light again, albeit slowly.

Finally we enter a new modern age. Six lane highways and self driving cars. Huge cities, mass communication and the old Abbey surrounded by new extensions and new troubles. Because inevitably mankind has rediscovered the means to destroy itself and the world once again teeters on the brink. But there is a plan hatched by the Church to save what they can and head off world, towards Alpha Centauri. Can they save the light for the future?

Miller's novel is one of the classics of Science Fiction, deeply prescient, deeply pessimistic and highly thought provoking. The cycle of destruction seems a fatal flaw in Man's psyche, doomed to repeat the same pattern over millennia. Miller's novel is also deeply philosophical, religion examined under the microscope of impending annihilation. There's a passage towards the end that infuriated this staunch atheist, but then I guess that's the hallmark of a novel that makes you think. Does suffering bring you nearer to God, or is it more merciful to end suffering if there is no hope of recovery?

Miller also hints that one of his characters, the old man, is The Wandering Jew, Lazarus, alive for millennia awaiting the return of Jesus Christ. He provides a somewhat cynical counterpoint to the monks, while also pointing mankind in the direction of recovery.

Sometimes you find the so-called classics age badly and become stale, unreadable. But A Canticle is a fine exception. Well worth your time.