A Canticle for Leibowitz

I usually steer clear of apocalyptic novels because they tend to be depressing, strange, and godless. So when my Tuesday Night Classics Club chose the science fiction novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz, I was hesitant. However, since it is highlighted in Joseph Pearce’s Literature: What Every Catholic Should Know, I decided to give it a chance. To my surprise, it became one of the most thought-provoking books our group has discussed.Set after a global nuclear war known as the “Flame Deluge,” the novel explores humanity’s struggle to rebuild civilization amidst the ruins. In the wake of the war, there is a violent backlash against knowledge and technology, culminating in the “Simplification,” where mobs of “Simpletons” destroy books and kill anyone with learning. Interestingly, a Jewish electrical engineer named Isaac Edward Leibowitz survives the chaos and joins a Cistercian monastery. He is convinced that he must dedicate his life to preserving human knowledge through the secretive “booklegging” of hidden texts. Eventually, he founds the Albertian Order of Leibowitz in the desert of the American Southwest, whose charism is rooted in the preservation of any remnants of scientific and cultural knowledge they can find.The novel is divided into three sections or “canticles,” each set centuries apart. The first, Fiat Homo (“Let There Be Man”), was especially fascinating to me. Set in the 26th century, civilization has regressed to a medieval-like way of living. The story opens during Lent with Brother Francis, a religious novice, fasting and praying in the desert. While keeping vigil, Brother Francis stumbles upon a fallout shelter containing artifacts from the Venerable Leibowitz, igniting a series of events that reflect the tension in the Abbey between honoring Leibowitz and his values and the need to survive in a culture that wants nothing to do with the past or its knowledge.The second canticle, Fiat Lux (“Let There Be Light”), was more difficult for me. Set in 3174, civilization has evolved to an Industrial Revolution-like state. The Abbey, at this point, is both a place of spiritual significance and a center of technological discovery, as the monks work to discover electricity. They have heard the myths that electricity existed before, but many do not believe it, because they cannot believe that man, having had such luxury, would waste it on war.The third Canticle, though, brings the novel to a powerful close. In 3781, the now technologically advanced society prepares for another nuclear war. The Abbey is assembling a group of priests, sisters, and children to colonize the moon. The Abbot is convinced that history is about to repeat itself, so he sends the gospel, sacraments, relics of knowledge, and innocent children away (never to return) so that mankind can have another chance somewhere away from the nuclear holocaust that has begun.As the Abbot feared, the bombs begin to drop and the Abbey is overrun with victims and refugees. While the Abbot works to send pilgrims away, he still has to tend to the flock that remained behind. This canticle has an incredible storyline exploring euthanasia as compassionate care. The Abbot and a doctor engage in a powerful debate about what is true care for those who are suffering.In each section, the Gospel persists. And in each, Christians are faced with intense and interesting ethical dilemmas. The novel’s exploration of faith, human resilience, and the cyclical nature of history is profound. Although I found parts of the second canticle slow and frustrating, the novel as a whole was a rewarding experience. A Canticle for Leibowitz offers a rare blend of science fiction, history, and theology, and I can see why Joseph Pearce considers it essential reading.

If science fiction fans had an organization equivalent to Gideons International, dedicated to disseminating the sacred texts of the genre along the traffic lanes of life, you would find a copy of A Canticle for Leibowitz lying next to the Gideons Bible every time you slid open the night stand in your motel/hotel room. It would be stamped AOL (Abbey of the Order of Leibowitz), and it would be a call to the faithful, a reminder of just how good sci-fi CAN be, when brilliant wordsmithing, sophisticated humor, and an excellent tale are couched in richly layered philosophy and theology.The tale itself is bi-apocalyptic, in and of itself filling a very sparsely populated niche. Beginning with Francis, a young applicant to the Brotherhood of the Order of Leibowitz, fasting and praying in the post nuclear war ruins of what had 600 years earlier been the United States, and subsequently stumbling upon an intact fallout shelter, a story spanning many centuries unfurls. Technology reawakens, Lucifer in nuclear form begins once more to stalk the earth.William Miller Jr. published his only novel (the sequel to Canticle was not written by Miller) in 1959. The date is important for context. The Cuban Missile Crisis, arguably the closest that mankind ever came to nuclear annihilation, was a mere three years in the future. The threat of nuclear war was pervasive, a common topic in magazines as popular as Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report was the building of fallout shelters; every major U.S. city had designated underground shelters for civilians stocked with olive drab square five gallon tins containing water, medical supplies, and survival biscuits that tasted something like a cross between dust and graham crackers. Virtually every school routinely went through nuclear war drills, in which the Civil Defense sirens would go off, the students would "duck and cover" under their desks to wait until the all clear signal was given. Daytime images of Nikita Khrushchev pounding his shoe on the lectern and saying "We will annihilate you" merged in my mind with the 2 AM growl and roar of the Strategic Air Command nuclear armed B-52's doing practice launches against the USSR from nearby Beale Air Force Base. Few books, if any, have captured the ubiquitous dread of those years as well as Miller's.At the same time, the Catholic Church with its pre-Vatican II liturgy in full Latin throat, was at a peak in terms of mystery and majesty, long before its loss of priest and nun vocations, long before what atheist Christopher Hutchens refers to as the Church's "No Child's Behind Left policy" become a scourge of the Church's image. Miller's depiction of postulant training, the role of the Church in the preservation of pre-apocalyptic knowledge (including the mysterious sacred relic from St. Leibowitz himself that reads "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels"), and the Church's role in trying to preserve the gentle candle light of the soul side by side with the eyeball frying arc welder light of technology is mesmerizing, nuanced, and yes, brilliant, hearkening back to the role of the Church as protector and promoter of knowledge during the Dark Ages. If there is much that is dated (and there isn't much) about this tale, it is the idea of the contemporary Catholic Church as a beacon in the age of intellectual darkness.There are other sci-fi tales that eschew space opera and military hardware to examine the role of religion in an age of nearly omnipotent technology, e.g. Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow, a gentle but provocative tale of the Jesuits privately financing an expedition to make first contact with a nearby alien civilization. But there is something special in the intensity of the technology versus science duel in Canticle for Leibowitz, the awkward waltz that results when the two ways of knowledge WANT to dance, but can't avoid treading each other's toes into pulp. I suspect the articulate, profound, and tragic conversation on the topic is a direct reflection of William Miller Jr.'s own trichotomy: an excellent scientist, a man of liberal arts education, a person of great religious passion. It was no small struggle for Miller to resolve, who eventually took his own life.Miller's quest in this book, though, is not to give us one more iteration of the potential conflict between science and religious faith (though he does address this), it is a bigger fish, maybe a Leviathan, that is at the core of his search: does the very nature of being human condemn us to endless cycles of destruction and redemption. Poignant, haunting, and uncommonly accurate in depiction, A Canticle for Leibowitz functions as a sort of Hubble Space Telescope turned towards the surface of the Earth, rather than towards the stars, with the resulting images no less spell-binding. Bravo, William Miller, Jr., and thanks for the gift you bequeathed to us.

This is an absolutely incredible book, contains 3 stories that follow on from one another chronologically but in different time frames. It’s beautifully written and flows well.

Viele SF-Bücher aus der "golden Age" sind nicht gut gealtert. Insofern war ich etwas vorsichtig, dieses Buch noch einmal (nach 30 Jahren oder so) zu lesen. Tatsächlich ist das Bucch zeitlos gut. Ja, man merkt an manchen Stellen dass das Buch älter ist, doch es fühlt sich nicht überaltert an. Die Themen des Buches - die Gefahr des Atomkrieges, die Streitereien, die Bedeutung der Kirche - sind immer noch aktuell. Die drei Geschichten, aus denen das Buch zusammengesetzt ist, sind immer noch spannend, der leicht augenzwinkernde Stil lädt zum Durchlesen ein, können aber nicht täuschen, dass hier keine Wohlfühlliteratur vorliegt. Ich wei nicht, warum an Schulen immer nur die Physiker gelesen werden und niemals Leibowitz, denn diese beiden Werke sind mindestens ebenbürtig.

I really enjoyed this. Perhaps younger readers will not feel this book the way the older "cold war" generation do. The spectre of nuclear annihilation was strong at the time this was written, and the story, set in the far future, revolves around the idea that M.A.D. had indeed taken place in what was for the narrators a distant past. The story traces the slow recuperation of humankind beginning in a post-war dark age, proceeding to a renaissance based upon fragments of, to the persons living at that time, very ancient knowledge. For a very long time monks are the guardians of this knowledge - even though few of them have any idea just what exactly it is they are preserving. In the end....well, read it and find out for yourself.

Quick delivery well packaged and in great condition. I'm happy.

This is a book that was first published quite a while back. I read it in high school. And, remembering that it was a good sci fi read, I ordered it so I could read it again. Glad that I did. With the recent developments in international politics in the direction of bigger and better weapons, maybe everyone needs to read this book. What happens if the nukes rain down on the world? In this story, humans aren't totally burned off the face of the planet, but they suffer the retributions of their nuclear folly. After that kind of experience, do you think humans will change and become peaceful and good-hearted towards each other? Will the learning that resulted in that holocaust be forever cast aside? or re-embraced? And what could the result be in either case? The author created a story that is haunting in its apparent possibility. I recommend this book to anyone who likes Sci Fi and also for those who are a bit worried about recent political trends in the world.