First of all, let me say that if you haven't had a catholic education this could be hard going, the rites & rituals of the catholic church feature heavily as does the use of vulgate latin.

Huge nuclear war, civilization almost destroyed, the survivors then go about blaming science & learning for the catastrophe and the usual bonfire of books occurs. The order of monks founded by Leibowitz do what they can to save the past with the memorabilia (there is a very obvious parallel here with the role of Celtic monasteries in the dark ages). The abbey is in the desert and sends its novices out to survive over lent and test their vocation. One novice meets and old pilgrim, who shows him where to find an ideal rock for his shelter, which he marks up in Hebrew. The novice then finds a small cache of documents one of them seemingly written by Leibowitz himself. What follows is an interesting tale of church politics & a society despertly scrabbling to regain knowledge. The book then jumps forward to a renaisance type society, where the tension between church & state is explored alongside that between faith & knowledge. Finally the book leaps forward again, to an advanced society, where despite the lessons of the past it looks like history is going to be repeating itself.

Through all of this there are bits & peices of linkage, the wandering Jew (is it perhaps Liebowitz himself ?) the statue of the Saint carved by one of the brothers in the first part, the abbey & memorabilia, and the poet.

Apparently the author was involved in the attack on Monte Cassino in WWII and that's where the idea came from. Its a beautifully realised picture of a post apocalypse future, where the patterns of the past are evident, stir in the mystery of the Jewish pilgrim and a couple of pointers to the reader and you have this, possibly under known book. If you remember the cold war or like post apocalypse fiction this book is a must, don't let teh atin & the church put you off ( )

Written in 1959, this post-apocalyptic science fiction book won the Hugo award in 1961 for the best novel. For a book meant to evoke the apprehension of a nuclear war and worldwide conflagration (much more common and topical in the late 1950’s than today), it has held up rather well.

The book assumes that very few humans survived a nuclear war in the early 1960’s and that the survivors have little or no record or recollection of how it came about. Moreover, their technology 600 years after the war has deteriorated to the level of the first Dark Ages. Survivors of the nuclear holocaust had gone on a murderous rampage destroying everyone deemed responsible, not only including political leaders but also scientists, teachers, technicians, and other intelligentsia. Books were also burned as part of this “Simplification.”

The Catholic Church, however, seems to have survived in a very recognizable form. In the southwest desert, some of them built a monastery and scriptorium dedicated to preserving knowledge by hiding books, smuggling them to safety (booklegging), memorizing, and copying them. It was named after its founder, the Blessed Martyr Leibowitz (who was burned to death by angry mobs).

A novice from the monastery, Brother Francis, while on a vigil in the desert, encounters a mysterious pilgrim who leads him to the site of a hitherto undiscovered fall-out shelter. When Brother Francis stumbles down into it, he finds numerous documents, even one for circuit design by “Leibowitz, I.E.” The monks have no idea whatsoever concerning what a circuit design might be, but the reference to Leibowitz is earth shaking. Rumors start that the unknown hermit could have been the Blessed Leibowitz himself. The abbot of the monastery is a wise old codger, who is not ready to admit the newly discovered documents into the order’s “Memorabilia” without a rigorous test of authenticity. The new documents might just be enough to qualify Blessed Leibowitz for canonization. After several years of review by the Dominicans as devil’s advocate, Blessed Leibowitz becomes a serious candidate for sainthood.

The story picks up 600 years later. Humanity has made some technological progress, but has not yet come close to the level of the 1960’s. The monks of now Saint Leibowitz have maintained their Memorabilia, but have focused more on their preservation than on sharing the documents for the advancement of knowledge. A secular power has arisen in the East, and one of its scholars, Thon Taddeo, is aware of the existence of the Memorabilia and comes to the monastery to study them. His perusal of the documents in the scriptorium enables him to draw inferences in physics that otherwise would not have been possible.

Several interesting debates ensue about the role of science and the danger presented by science in the hands of an aggressive secular power and the respective roles of Church and State. Successive abbots wonder why history must always repeat itself. The second third of the book closes with a general premonition of impending war.

The narrative then jumps many more years into the future. The world has a very advanced technology, but the monastery is still in place, though much augmented. News reports say there have been two nuclear explosions, but no one wants to admit who was responsible. The major powers confer and call for a ceasefire that is ultimately violated. The monks learn that the level of radioactive fall-out in their area is increasing rapidly. Many refugees begin to arrive on the grounds of the monastery and government agents arrive to administer euthanasia to victims of radiation poisoning.

The final chapters of the book deal with the confrontation between the abbot of the monastery and a government doctor. The abbot argues that assisted killing is wrong but the doctor declares that “Pain is the only evil I know about.” At the conclusion, a large explosion rips the abbey, and the abbot is buried from the waist down, unable to extricate himself. He discovers just how hard it is to continue living without hope and in great pain.

The pilgrim we meet at the beginning of the book keeps reappearing. He seems to stand for all Jews, still searching for a Messiah.

Because its themes have been copied so much the book may not seem as imaginative at first glance as it was when written. The characters are well-wrought and the moral issues are nicely framed without becoming overly tendentious. The atmosphere, the role, and the moral position of the Church are consistently portrayed and accurate. The story line of the book is not nearly as important as its mood, which is distinctly noir.

(JAB)

Dissent by JAF:

My husband may not have minded the excessive amount (to me) of passages in Latin, since he passed much of his education in Catholic schooling. I however, did not understand much of the prayers and thought they could have been edited out quite nicely. I also found the religious and philosophical debates overly prolix and ultimately boring. Compare this book to one like On the Beach. The theme is the same, even the end is the same, but the route to get there is vastly more entertaining. ( )

The story of humanity's rise and fall after a nuclear disaster changes the face of the world.

Like the best classic science fiction, this book is about ideas. Miller thrusts us into one hell of a "what if" scenario and runs with it. I must say, I was quite impressed with the end product. It's broken into three parts, each of which takes place about six hundred years after the previous segment. This doesn't give the reader much of a chance to get to know the characters, but it does give Miller an effective platform from which to develop his themes. He does so very, very well.

On a technical level, the prose is readable and occasionally quite funny. The world is realistically delineated, and the characterization is really quite good given how little time we spend with each of these people. I found it easy to sink into the book. This was never a struggle to read. It was often quite a pleasure.

I did feel that the last segment, in which Miller takes a decidedly more science fictiony approach, was a bit weak compared to the previous two. This is likely just my own bias coming through, though; I'm not terribly big on sci fi, as a general rule.

I'm glad I gave the book a try, though. It was certainly worth it. I doubt I'll ever feel the need to revisit it, but I'm happy to have read it. Recommended. ( )

Absolutely fantastic. The only seminal classic of apocalyptic fiction which has undeniable literary merit, A Canticle for Leibowitz succeeds brilliantly on several levels. Must own for fans of the subgenre, and must read for everyone else. ( )

Publication date: 1960
Original language: English



Summary


The novel begins some six centuries after nuclear war destroyed twentieth-century civilisation. The anti-scientific backlash which followed this disaster led to almost total illiteracy amongst the survivors, who murdered intellectuals and destroyed books. The monastic order of Leibowitz was founded in the American desert to try to preserve learning by smuggling books to safe places and making copies of them. The circumstances behind the founding of the order and the identity of the iconic Leibowitz are slowly revealed as the novel progresses.


A Canticle for Leibowitz is split into three sections. The first, Fiat Homo, describes the discovery of some relics of the Blessed Leibowitz in a fallout shelter in the desert. The second, Fiat Lux, set in the year 3174, chronicles the beginning of a Renaissance, as half-remembered scientific and technical knowledge is picked up by scholars. The final section, Fiat Voluntas Tua, begins in 3781. Nuclear weapons and space travel have been redeveloped, and the two superpowers of the third millennium, the Atlantic Confederacy and the Asian Coalition, are at a very fragile standoff. The development of the situation depends on mankind’s ability to listen to reason and to learn from its mistakes.



Why you must read this book


Even those who hate sci-fi will admit that this is a classic. The transcendent themes of cyclicality and the inescapable nature of history is beautifully dramatised here, alongside the eternal question of the value of learning. The brutality of the post-war “Simplification”, in which the literate are murdered and their books burned, is chilling, and yet we are called to question whether the arrogance and greed of the twentieth century nuclear powers was – or is – any less inhuman. The critique of technological advancement for its own sake may have become almost cliché to us, but this novel demands that we make that critique without irony and bearing in mind the real political consequences of our social setup.


Miller has an amazing depth of understanding of human nature and uses it to provide a narrative which never once rings false in its presentation of characterisation and motivation. The grand sweep of political history and the relationship between Church and State form a solid background to the novel, yet it is in the minutiae of everyday life for the monks of the Order of Leibowitz that the real pathos and drama are revealed.


Apart from being a rare sci-fi literary classic, however, this is also an absolute page-turner. The story is inexorable and it is almost impossible to break off from reading it.



If you liked this, you'll love...


The Children of Men by P. D. James
I am Legend by Richard Matheson
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Dr. Bloodmoney by Philip K. Dick ( )