A Canticle for Leibowitz

First published in 1960, A Canticle for Leibowitz is set after World War III which has left the planet a radioactive desert. Civilisation is rebuilding itself, and monks keep and illuminate relics from the past. The structure of the story is in three parts titled: “Fiat Homo”, “Fiat Lux”, and “Fiat Voluntas Tua”. Six centuries separate each of the periods:

- Part 1 gives is a back story to the post apocalyptic world.
- Part 2 shows humanity embracing knowledge.
- Part 3 shows humanity more or less back to where it was before the atomic desolation.

The link between these three separate stories is a monastic order. This simply wasn't interesting to me. Many of Miller's attitudes and ideas also haven't dated too well. For example, we have space ships, translation machines and driverless cars. Miller also embraces racism and sexism. We have savages whose ancestors were Indians, a male only priesthood, sly Asian enemies, and the females are either mothers, wives or Sisters.

The cynical story is slow paced, dense and bleak, with the occasional flash of humour. The moral of the book is that humans are too stupid to learn from our mistakes. The third part of the book, includes a debate between future Church and state stances on euthanasia, a thematic issue representative of the larger conflict between Church and state.

I found A Canticle for Leibowitz to have literary aspirations which fell far short. The long-winded plot is nebulous, weak and uses Latin and ecclesiastical minutiae as a way to get its point across. There didn't seem to be much character development either. Finally, there are no references to the modern day, which make it difficult to conceptualise the horror of this world. This is an essential part of good post apocalyptic fiction.

Sorry to be negative but I just couldn't get into it at all.