A Canticle for Leibowitz (St. Leibowitz, #1) in The Sword and Laser

Mar 27, 2014 John Wiswell rated it it was amazing

How do some authors go their entire lives only writing one novel and leaving it great? This, To Kill a Mockingbird, and World War Z all ring as books that should have come from veteran authors. A Canticle for Leibowitz is a terrifically robust novel that I would have said breathed new life into the nuclear post-apocalypse story if it hadn't been published in 1960.

It's been so long since nuclear war ravaged us that "Fallout" is a mythical demon believed to have scourged the earth. In this time, w How do some authors go their entire lives only writing one novel and leaving it great? This, To Kill a Mockingbird, and World War Z all ring as books that should have come from veteran authors. A Canticle for Leibowitz is a terrifically robust novel that I would have said breathed new life into the nuclear post-apocalypse story if it hadn't been published in 1960.

It's been so long since nuclear war ravaged us that "Fallout" is a mythical demon believed to have scourged the earth. In this time, we find a monastic order whose patron saint was a 20th century engineer - Isaac Edward Leibowitz. His blueprints are holy relics to be protected, illuminated, and treasured, even if the culture can't understand how to do anything with them yet. The world has regressed greatly in knowledge after nuclear war destroyed so much, and survivors became violently anti-intellectual, murdering anyone associated with the sciences that had killed so much of the population. Leibowitz converted to Catholicism and lived among monks, trying to preserve information in exactly the way that many monastic orders did in the history of Europe. Now he's the subject of (questionable) visions, and the discovery of his texts means the possibility of scientific progress returning to the world.

You think it's a novel about Brother Francis Gerard, the quirky fellow who first thinks he sees Leibowitz's ghost in the desert and discovers his documents. Upon finding a blueprint for something he deems physically impossible to build, he spends fifteen years creating an illuminated copy. When the New Vatican requests it, he travels and is robbed - but the robber steals the illuminated copy, figuring the old tattered version must be worthless. Francis thinks his fifteen years were wasted, but the Pope cheers him - his fifteen years of work protected the true relic.

It sounds so similar to authentic Christian folk stories, which is part of Miller's brilliance. It's not a devotional novel, and you're not going to be converted to or from a religion by this. Rather, you're going to see the world peeled apart by a shared psychology of a monastic order that has never given up hope for progress. Sometimes they bicker or fight internally; sometimes, as in the treatment of a mother who wants to euthanize her dying child, their commandments seem cruel. What they always are is authentic and interesting. It's the end of the world, and even their ignorance shows how we study what we can't understand, and what we do when we learn.

Because the novel is so optimistic it gets pessimistic again. Like The Stand, if we rebuild enough, we return to the same old problems of military violence and science's incredible destructive power. And so what you thought was a novel about Francis, and his Abbot, and their Pope, increases in scope until we sample the whole ascending world, with both the wonder and fear of progress. As one character puts it:

"Ignorance has been our king. Since the death of empire, he sits unchallenged on the throne of Man. His dynasty is age-old. His right to rule is now considered legitimate. Past sages have affirmed it. They did nothing to unseat him."

The worst thing I can say for A Canticle for Leibowitz is that now all other Speculative Fiction will seem even more lacking in their representations of religion. The token religious character who no one understands is already annoying, but immediately after this book I picked up another novel where the lone religious person is challenged and immediately spouts, "It's about faith." Even if Fantasy and Science Fiction are genres dominated by non-theist authors these days, their handling is sloppy and lazy in comparison to the unsettling grasp Miller's novel has.

That is the sign of a great canonical novel: it makes you think less of everything else you've been reading. After this and Middlemarch, I wonder if it isn't to literature's overall detriment, making so much work seem pale. Yet it ought to make us write better. This is certainly a novel I'll revisit, even if much of my fiction is in direct opposition to it.

It's a troubling novel, but not defeatist like other apocalyptic fiction of the mid-1900s. It's a battle between options, between the comfort of delusion and the power of science, between the persistence of religion and the order of government. Throughout, there's a baffling streak of humor, as when long after the time of Francis, an old hermit shows up saying he's who Francis mistook for a vision. No, he's isn't Leibowitz; he's Leibowitz's cousin, and centuries old. If you believe the hermit, Francis was confused him for another miracle. ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

May 22, 2012 Charlotte rated it really liked it

Shelves: bookskype

As a science fiction book, this is unique. I'm not even sure I would have classified it as such if just handed a copy. For one thing, the story follows a monastery through the (mostly low-technology) ages following an apocalypse. The monks and their quite pondering about theology are far from normal science fiction fare. Moreover, religion, while critiqued, is always front-and-center, even more so than the science. That said, both the science and the sociology portrayed appeared very realistic, ...more

Like · see review

Sep 28, 2011 Adrienne rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, library, post-apocalyptic, bookskype

Warning! This book is told in three sections set hundreds of years apart. This may bother you if you get attached to characters like I do.

I did not know this, and happily read along with Brother Francis in the first section. I liked him quite a bit, and even though he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, he was at least entertaining. And then... a whole new section. And new characters! Argh. None of them were as interesting to me, but that might have been because I didn't know a switch was comi ...more

Like · see review

Jun 28, 2010 travelgirlut rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopia

This book had a lot of food for thought. This is the only post-apocalyptic book I've ever read that covers the downfall, build up and then downfall again of mankind. The consistent element through all those times was religion. Knowledge, government, society, etc., all disappeared and had to be rediscovered, but religion was always there. Interesting stuff. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel and hope it's as good. ...more

Like · see review

Sep 26, 2012 Joby Walker rated it it was ok

Shelves: fantasy

I feel like a heretic by giving two stars to this classic -- but then I've never been much of a fan of classics or apocalyptic fiction. I find the overarching despair of repeating disastrous history obnoxious and while the individual stories have some bright points there just isn't much here besides excessive Latin and an attempt to bludgeon the reader. ...more

Like · see review