A Canticle for Leibowitz
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Average rating3.9
Added to listOwnedwith 36 books.
SUMMARY: Walter M. Miller's acclaimed SF classic A Canticle for Leibowitz opens with the accidental excavation of a holy artifact: a creased, brittle memo scrawled by the hand of the blessed Saint Leibowitz, that reads: “Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels—bring home for Emma.” To the Brothers of Saint Leibowitz, this sacred shopping list penned by an obscure, 20th-century engineer is a symbol of hope from the distant past, from before the Simplification, the fiery atomic holocaust that plunged the earth into darkness and ignorance. As 1984 cautioned against Stalinism, so 1959's A Canticle for Leibowitz warns of the threat and implications of nuclear annihilation. Following a cloister of monks in their Utah abbey over some six or seven hundred years, the funny but bleak Canticle tackles the sociological and religious implications of the cyclical rise and fall of civilization, questioning whether humanity can hope for more than repeating its own history. Divided into three sections—Fiat Homo (Let There Be Man), Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light), and Fiat Voluntas Tua (Thy Will Be Done)—Canticle is steeped in Catholicism and Latin, exploring the fascinating, seemingly capricious process of how and why a person is canonized. —Paul Hughes
SUMMARY: Walter M. Miller's acclaimed SF classic A Canticle for Leibowitz opens with the accidental excavation of a holy artifact: a creased, brittle memo scrawled by the hand of the blessed Saint Leibowitz, that reads: “Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels—bring home for Emma.” To the Brothers of Saint Leibowitz, this sacred shopping list penned by an obscure, 20th-century engineer is a symbol of hope from the distant past, from before the Simplification, the fiery atomic holocaust that plunged the earth into darkness and ignorance. As 1984 cautioned against Stalinism, so 1959's A Canticle for Leibowitz warns of the threat and implications of nuclear annihilation. Following a cloister of monks in their Utah abbey over some six or seven hundred years, the funny but bleak Canticle tackles the sociological and religious implications of the cyclical rise and fall of civilization, questioning whether humanity can hope for more than repeating its own history. Divided into three sections—Fiat Homo (Let There Be Man), Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light), and Fiat Voluntas Tua (Thy Will Be Done)—Canticle is steeped in Catholicism and Latin, exploring the fascinating, seemingly capricious process of how and why a person is canonized. —Paul Hughes
The world has gone through a nuclear war and lies in ruins. 600 years later some communities of people are forming, and one of them is a monastic order dedicated to Saint Leibowitz. He was martyred for his faith in the aftermath of the war and we are introduced to a novice of the order, Brother Francis. Francis stumbles into a buried fallout shelter and finds more of the writings of Leibowitz, but revealing them to his Abbot causes a crisis. Are they authentic? What do they mean? And what do they reveal about Leibowitz?
As the novel progresses we find that the history in the minds of the monks is not as they believe. They live in naivete about the past and its consequences. Their shared holiness, however, maintains them in faith and conviction.
The undercurrents of the novel reveal that Leibowitz was an engineer and his 'writings' are engineering and electronic diagrams. He was killed in a time called The Simplification where all educated people were seen as the cause of the war and were murdered by the survivors as they burned any surviving books and libraries. The monks were secretly finding and storing books and teaching themselves to read.
Part 1 of the book is the story of Francis. He is the sweetest and most wholesome person imaginable and he maintains his faith in his precious saint and lives in obedience to his Abbot through the political wranglings of his superiors caused by what Francis has found. The gentle humour that underlies much of the book is shown when Francis finds the fallout shelter. He knows that 'fallout' killed most of the world's inhabitants but he doesn't know what it is. He sees the sign 'Fallout Shelter' on the door and thinks 'That must be where a fallout is hiding. No way am I opening that door. It might still be alive and attack me.'
Part 2 of the book takes us another 600 years into the future. The monastery has expanded in numbers and the buildings have been fortified. Other communities have risen, one of them is the 'city' where ignorant and uneducated people have control over the political life, the other is a band of savages living in the forest. They waylay travelers and are known for cannibalism. The monks continue to struggle with interpreting the works of Leibowitz, but secular intellectuals from the city are now interested as they think there might be leads towards learning the technology of the past. The Abbott of this era is occupied in preserving the monastery and their saint in the face of the warfare that is looming after the city reinvents gun powder and muskets and can now move against the savages.
Part 3 takes us a further 600 years. Space travel has been achieved, technology is everywhere and the Abbott has a self driving car and his order has a starship ready to take missionaries to the colony worlds of Alpha Centauri. But technology also means the increase of nuclear weapons and an old threat reemerges. Much of this part of the book is taken up with discussions of morality and responsibility as the Abbot and his order struggle to maintain the beliefs that have informed their community life for centuries against the pragmatism of the city and a looming nuclear faceoff.
It was only after reading the book that I found that the author had been a rear gunner of a bomber in WW2 and on one mission they'd bombed a monastery in Italy. It had a profound effect on him and he converted to Catholicism after the war and struggled with PTSD and depression. 1959, the publication date, was also a time of great fear in America (I'm not American) and children used to do attack drills and were taught to hide under their desks etc. For me, sixty five years later and on the other side of the world, the story still hits hard for its literary value and without the undercurrent of fear that fueled American life when it was written.
The world has gone through a nuclear war and lies in ruins. 600 years later some communities of people are forming, and one of them is a monastic order dedicated to Saint Leibowitz. He was martyred for his faith in the aftermath of the war and we are introduced to a novice of the order, Brother Francis. Francis stumbles into a buried fallout shelter and finds more of the writings of Leibowitz, but revealing them to his Abbot causes a crisis. Are they authentic? What do they mean? And what do they reveal about Leibowitz?
As the novel progresses we find that the history in the minds of the monks is not as they believe. They live in naivete about the past and its consequences. Their shared holiness, however, maintains them in faith and conviction.
The undercurrents of the novel reveal that Leibowitz was an engineer and his 'writings' are engineering and electronic diagrams. He was killed in a time called The Simplification where all educated people were seen as the cause of the war and were murdered by the survivors as they burned any surviving books and libraries. The monks were secretly finding and storing books and teaching themselves to read.
Part 1 of the book is the story of Francis. He is the sweetest and most wholesome person imaginable and he maintains his faith in his precious saint and lives in obedience to his Abbot through the political wranglings of his superiors caused by what Francis has found. The gentle humour that underlies much of the book is shown when Francis finds the fallout shelter. He knows that 'fallout' killed most of the world's inhabitants but he doesn't know what it is. He sees the sign 'Fallout Shelter' on the door and thinks 'That must be where a fallout is hiding. No way am I opening that door. It might still be alive and attack me.'
Part 2 of the book takes us another 600 years into the future. The monastery has expanded in numbers and the buildings have been fortified. Other communities have risen, one of them is the 'city' where ignorant and uneducated people have control over the political life, the other is a band of savages living in the forest. They waylay travelers and are known for cannibalism. The monks continue to struggle with interpreting the works of Leibowitz, but secular intellectuals from the city are now interested as they think there might be leads towards learning the technology of the past. The Abbott of this era is occupied in preserving the monastery and their saint in the face of the warfare that is looming after the city reinvents gun powder and muskets and can now move against the savages.
Part 3 takes us a further 600 years. Space travel has been achieved, technology is everywhere and the Abbott has a self driving car and his order has a starship ready to take missionaries to the colony worlds of Alpha Centauri. But technology also means the increase of nuclear weapons and an old threat reemerges. Much of this part of the book is taken up with discussions of morality and responsibility as the Abbot and his order struggle to maintain the beliefs that have informed their community life for centuries against the pragmatism of the city and a looming nuclear faceoff.
It was only after reading the book that I found that the author had been a rear gunner of a bomber in WW2 and on one mission they'd bombed a monastery in Italy. It had a profound effect on him and he converted to Catholicism after the war and struggled with PTSD and depression. 1959, the publication date, was also a time of great fear in America (I'm not American) and children used to do attack drills and were taught to hide under their desks etc. For me, sixty five years later and on the other side of the world, the story still hits hard for its literary value and without the undercurrent of fear that fueled American life when it was written.
