A Canticle for Leibowitz

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel written in 1959.The book is a product of its time period. In 1954 the U.S. had completed the nuclear test on Bikini Atoll with a hydrogen bomb that yielded 14.8 megatons. The Soviets followed in 1955 with a 1.6 megaton test. In 1959 the Cold War was heating up. The two superpowers were racing towards mutual destruction.Each of the three stories that comprise A Canticle for Leibowitz, take place approximately 6 centuries apart, at the Abbey of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz, located in the American Southwest.The first third of the book introduces us to the world that is left after the “Flame Deluge”, which was the nuclear war that laid waste to civilization. The Jewish weapons engineer, Leibowitz, founds a Roman Catholic monastery for the purpose of safeguarding and preserving human knowledge.There is a lot of Latin in the story, which adds to the story, but does not detract from the story, if you just skip over those parts.The second section takes place in the 32nd Century and shows humanity struggling to emerge out of the dark ages.The third and last section takes place in the 38th Century. Humanity is again in full technological brilliance and seems ready to give the Earth another nuclear war.Miller does a wonderful job of creating this world with believable characters. The story is dark, with pessimism, but there is also hope and optimism woven in. He examines art, society, the nature of war, the right to life, and euthanasia. This is not your ordinary science fiction story. There is much moral philosophy. It is a deep read, but not one to struggle through. The story carries you along. I highly recommend it.

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.

I chose to read A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. for my English course because, I was told, it’s a timeless science fiction novel that explores the idea of a dystopia in a unique, powerful way. My high expectations were largely met: the society of the novel is fascinating, the ideas are original, and the novel’s implications are frightening. Miller’s central ideas are masterfully expressed in the three parts of the novel, making it an engaging read filled with unpredictable, shocking turns.Miller instantly drops the reader into a bleak, post-apocalyptic world of the distant future in which civilization is once again primitive and radioactive mutants roam the earth. The reader slowly learns more about the story’s first protagonist, Brother Francis, a thoughtful young man and aspiring member of the Order of Leibowitz, as he discovers sacred artifacts in the desert - bits of a preserved notebook that survived the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth centuries ago. The religious order that Francis belongs to venerates scientific knowledge, and its members have eagerly dedicated their lives to seeking out and preserving documents that weren’t destroyed in the “Age of Simplification” (read the book and this part will make more sense). The story moves slowly after Francis’ discovery, but Miller gives the reader excellent descriptions of the desolate world and developing society of the novel.As soon as his readers think they’ve got a grip on the story, Miller yanks them forward in time (about six centuries, to be exact). From there, Miller introduces completely new characters and skillfully builds on what happened in the first part of the story. The new protagonists, Hannegan,Thon Taddeo, and Dom Paulo are believable, dynamic characters that exemplify the conflict between the church, which is derived from the Order of Leibowitz, and the state (sound familiar?). The vivid descriptions of the setting and the convincing characters created by Miller make this portion of the novel an easy read, for the most part.Again, once the reader thinks he understands where the story is headed, Miller shoves him forward another six centuries into the futuristic Space Age. Atomic Bombs have been developed and overproduced by the two remaining world powers, and the threat of nuclear war is all too real. But, you get the drill: more characters, similar conflicts on larger scales, and the same themes: time, power, and recurrence. Though this part of the novel is well constructed, it’s much more emotionally impactful. Miller succeeds in grasping the reader's attention while, simultaneously, unnerving them with his dark vision of the future. It reminded me an awful lot of the movie Wall-E, minus the goofy, sentient robots, in that its depiction of the human race and our lack of foresight made me feel somewhat ashamed. Miller’s dystopian society of the future is heavily exaggerated, but his criticisms of the direction of contemporary society are clear, and to some degree, accurate.Miller’s story not only commanded my attention, but made me consider human behavior and our responsibilities as individuals in an advanced society. For this reason alone I would recommend this book to anyone that loves to learn from literature.BUT, if I were to give Miller one point of advice, it would be to eliminate the extra drama that is insignificant to the story and the novel’s purpose - it made the book boring and difficult to read at times. For example, when characters were locked in religious arguments that included lots of obscure terminology and references to even more obscure fictional events, I became annoyed and wanted to put the book down.

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.

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.

Miller successfully takes on the challenge of captivating the reader not only once, but thrice. He connects the past of the future and the future of the past in a brilliant way

I heard about this book looking for something to read inside a fantasy/post-apocaliptic wishlist/commended-list. I found this book well written, with a fresh and new plot, entertaining and sometimes even poignant (first act). Once I'm done with university, I'll surely read it again