A Canticle for Leibowitz

This was an interesting book and I am glad it was a book club pick (S & L). The outlook of the book to me felt refreshing and slightly depressing. I hope the portrait of humanity was not accurate, and the fact that there wasn't already mass nuclear annihilation is a good start.

This one has been in the “classics I haven't actually read” pile for a long time, and I'm glad the book club picked it so I had an excuse to read it. Considered the foundation of post-apocalyptic literature, I can see how this story has echoed through the genre's years both in its predictions and its themes.

Canticle for Leibowitz takes place in three parts as civilization rebuilds itself after a nuclear apocalypse. It is told largely from the perspective of a Roman Catholic monastery somewhere in the American Southwest who have taken on the purpose of preserving as much evidence of the previous age as they can through memorizing and smuggling (booklegging) any and all texts. The first part takes place in a very rudimentary society, the second in the beginnings of an industrial revolution, and third in a futuristic world (with magnet-powered self-driving cars that I'd really like) on the verge of repeating the disaster. Thus, the main theme is the cyclical nature of history, and the idea that we are doomed to repeat ourselves. Not a comforting idea in post-WWII years during which Miller wrote this novel. Indeed most of the novel doesn't feel dated at all as the problems faced by the characters are pretty much the same ones that rise up every time a nuclear threat does.

I see how this book earned its place in the literary pantheon, and I definitely think it should be required reading for anyone in a position of power. I don't agree with every point it makes, and honestly the ending with Rachel left me very disturbed, but on the whole I think its importance lives up to the hype.

the sins of man + nuclear fallout

Read a little over half the book. The post apocalyptic scenario was good enough. I liked the descriptions and the premise of a world where all the knowledge was destroyed to prevent another great war.

I liked how the main character was truthful to his believes and his personality was very well developed.

But the book gets lost in too many details and too little story. I perhaps could be more agreeable to the history of every part of a room if there was more content to wrap my mind around.

When I was eighteen, I was crazy for what are now called post-apocalyptic novels. Read them constantly. Sought them out. Which was much trickier in the days before Google.

One of the best books I read then was A Canticle for Leibowitz.

I hardly ever reread. (I know, I know. I should. I really should. Okay, I'm going to change. Promise. I will reread.) But I decided to try Canticle again when (1) a librarian friend said it was her fav book and (2) I saw it offered up on a Bookcrossing ray.

Trepidation. Much trepidation.

Not to fear, however. Canticle dished up nicely. Satisfying. In both a limited-book-I'm-reading-now way and in that wonderful but rare book-I'm-still-thinking-about-a-couple-of-weeks-later way.

Left with that lovely feeling of the Big World and how small my little daily worries are. And hope. Very nice.

Wonderful book, although written quite some time ago, the whole story can be perfectly applied to our current affairs worldwide.

Highly recommended.

Tremendous.

This was a reread, sort of. It was assigned reading in high school courtesy of a teacher I appreciated a good deal at the time and have come to appreciate more as I've grown older. (The same teacher also introduced me to Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle.) I didn't appreciate Canticle at the time, though, and I didn't really understand it at all. I decided to give it a reread again when it was featured in the Something Awful Book Club, and I'm glad I did. It has been considered a classic for years, published in the early '60s and honored with a Hugo award, and is one of that rare breed of at least nominally science fiction novels that Serious People deign to deem “literature.”

It's hard to know what to write about Canticle to convey useful information without impinging on the reader's experience. I don't want to talk too much about themes, because in this case I think it's important for new readers to draw them out themselves. It concerns three ages, all of them well after what the characters know as the “Flame Deluge”: nuclear apocalypse. Knowledge itself is widely reviled in most corners of the world, blamed for the destruction of the world, and anarchy is widespread. Those bringing order are more concerned with force and power. In a few corners, however, knowledge – or more commonly, data, understood poorly or not at all – is kept alive by monks who study it diligently and seek to keep it safe.

Canticle is a marvel. Eloquently and passionately written, thought-provoking and disquieting, to me at least it offered more questions than answers. I'm glad to have this one on my shelf.

This is a book that I would have absolutely loved as a high school student. I wished I were a high school student while I was reading it. Digesting it in huge chunks at a time. Hanging out in the study hall area before school, debating and quoting and dissecting with four or five other nerds who were reading it simultaneously. (That's how I've read most of the science fiction that I've really loved in my life. It's the best way to do it.) The problem with classic science fiction is that science fiction is a genre that eats it own and constantly regenerates ideas. So was Neal Stephenson's [b:Anathem 2845024 Anathem Neal Stephenson http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1224107150s/2845024.jpg 6163095] a complete homage? Yes, in many important ways. And certainly, it was influenced by Canticle, which proceeded it by 30+ years. But I read Anathem first, so Canticle comes off looking the derivative one. I feel bad, because I know it's historically inaccurate, but I'm just kind of over post-apocalyptic-humanity-is-doomed-to-repeat-its-own-mistakes-and-perpetually-destroy-itself. There were a few tropes I loved - most notably the dilemma of is a species technologically generated by humans to replicate humans less than human? However, that was really only considered for a sentence or two.

Was very underwhelmed by this after the positive recommendations I'd heard. I found it depressing and tiresomely preachy.