A Canticle for Leibowitz

[Greg, Muad'Dib]

This is the discussion thread for the second book of the month, or group read, for March. Please remember to use the spoiler tags where necessary.

The other group read topic for this month (The Three-Body Problem) can be found here.

[Greg, Muad'Dib]

One of our members, Richard Buro, has kindly offered to lead this discussion - thanks Richard!

[Richard, Astro]

Greetings to all,

My name is Richard W. Buro. My wife, our daughter, and I all live in Temple, TX, which is about halfway between Dallas/Fort Worth and San Antonio. I am a retired school teacher, an avid reader of many things, probably 60% science fiction, 30% history and world affairs, and about 10% biography and a miscellany of other items that interest me for one reason or another.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. was the 1961 Hugo Award Winner. It is recognized as a prime example of dystopic literature and speculative science fiction. I finished my reading of this work in April 2015. My review of the book can be found at Review.

Feel free to ask questions. Feel free to provide answers or ideas if you wish. I will try to answer all of your questions if I can. Please understand, while I am retired, I am working on several projects, but I really wanted to try moderating a discussion. So feel free to add appropriate criticism as you wish.

Thanks, from the Heart of the Great Lone Star State,
Richard W. Buro

[Richard, Astro]

Greg wrote: "One of our members, Richard Buro, has kindly offered to lead this discussion - thanks, Richard!"

My initial post is included below. Let me know what you think about my start, and feel free to help me as I try to wrap my head around the discussion of a book I read almost 4 years ago.

All the best,
Richard

[Ryan]

Tag.

[Susan]

It’s fitting that I’m reading this during Lent.

[Ryan]

Just finished part 1, and I'm having trouble understanding the last few pages of it. There's a lot of talk of buzzards (for what reason??) and I suppose it was inferred what happened to Francis (was he the traveler?) but I didn't quite catch it. Anyone there yet?

[Greg, Muad'Dib]

Susan wrote: "It’s fitting that I’m reading this during Lent."

Hi Susan, I'm not reading the book currently. Why is it fitting that you're reading it during Lent?

[Susan]

Hi Greg. The book opens with Brother Francis in the desert doing his penance for Lent.

Hi Ryan. I just finished part one too. I believe the wanderer is the same old man Brother Francis encounters at the beginning of the story. In both scenes, his “basket hat” is mentioned.

[Ryan]

Susan wrote: "Hi Greg. The book opens with Brother Francis in the desert doing his penance for Lent.

Hi Ryan. I just finished part one too. I believe the wanderer is the same old man Brother Francis encounters ..."

Despite the mention of the basket hat, it seems unlikely to me to be the same man, since a lot of time passed in part one - if memory serves, Francis was 19 at the beginning, and becoming an old man "greying at the temples" at the end, so probably at least 40 years. If the man at the beginning was old then, he should be dead by the end. Maybe something else is significant about the hat.

Do you have any other explanation about what was going on at the end of Part 1?

[Susan]

Hi Ryan. (view spoiler)[ If the wanderer is Saint Leibowitz, that would account for him looking the same at the end as at the beginning. Also, in the beginning the old man is chewing and spitting and in the final scene the wanderer is munching spice-leaf quid. Finally, there is the description of the black iota in the distance at both the beginning and end of the story.

On the other hand, if this is the saint himself why would he concerned about his safety?

The buzzards appear early in the story when Brother Francis discovers the fallout shelter. They hang around waiting to eat him if he dies. At the end of the story, they are feasting on his corpse. I suppose it is a bit of irony that he ends up being devoured by buzzards after all.

I was a bit confused about the motives of the murderers. The one crying out “Eat Eat Eat” made me think they were going to cannibalize Brother Francis, but if that had been the case, surely they would have taken his corpse with them, so perhaps they meant to rob him or kill him for sport. But then, why the cry of “Eat Eat Eat”?

The wanderer finds “significant portions” of the corpse missing. Does that mean the murderers took “significant portions” with them as food, or does it mean the buzzards had already consumed “significant portions”? Considering the behavior of the buzzards and the small amount of time that seems to have elapsed, my belief is that the murderers took “significant portions” of the corpse with them and left the rest for the buzzards. (hide spoiler)]

[Ryan]

Susan, thanks for your thoughtful reply.
(view spoiler)[Are saints supposed to be ageless? I'm not religious myself, so I don't know. If this were the case, it would bother me a little to have this small bit of fantasy in an otherwise plausible sci-fi world.

The buzzards vs the Eat Eat Eat was what was confusing me about the ending here as well. Your belief is probably the best reachable conclusion. We just know too little about the culture of the murderers to determine their motives and therefore their actions. (hide spoiler)]

[Susan]

In the earlier encounter (view spoiler)[with the robbers, when Brother Francis heard the man crying “eat eat,” he was not entirely sure it was in reference to his donkey. So although it is only a fear Brother Francis has, it puts the possibility into the mind of the reader.

Saints are dead, so that would imply they are changeless. If the wanderer is Saint Leibowitz, I would take him for an apparition. Of course, it would be strange for an apparition to burn his feet on the hot sand or fear for his safety from cougars, but there’s a possible explanation at the end of chapter 4: A heavenly being might just be acting like a person would.

Ryan wrote: “it would bother me a little to have this small bit of fantasy in an otherwise plausible sci-fi world.”

I think it’s likely that Miller would not have regarded this as fantasy. Miracles, such as apparitions of saints, are accepted as fact by the Catholic Church, so from the Catholic perspective, this would not be inconsistent with the realism of the novel. (hide spoiler)]

[Ryan]

I'm about halfway and I'm struggling. The plot/worldbuilding has potential but it's progressing very slowly, I don't particularly care about any of the characters, and the religious parts are unfamiliar to me and seem procedural and boring. I find myself wanting to read something else. If anyone gets to the second half and can tell me if I might find it more interesting, I might restart.

[Susan]

I loved the first story so much that I almost went back to reread it, but I was curious about the second story so I plunged on ahead. So far, I’m not enjoying it as much as the first story, but I’m only a few chapters in so it’s too soon to tell.

[Susan]

I posted too soon. It looks like some of the questions raised in the first story are answered in the second (though new questions are also raised).

[Thorkell]

Sadly I did not enjoy this book as much as most people. I struggled to get through it and I'm a theologian. Or maybe that is the problem. I found the theology dull and uninteresting. The only interesting part is the idea that God needs our forgiveness. That is a wonderful idea.

The book drags, the characters are hardly developed and mostly there for long and mostly boring theological discussions.

SPOILERS!!! Sadly this book trodes old theological ideas and just reaffirms them. Adam and Eve were not supposed to eat of the tree of knowledge and now we know why God was right and the snake was wrong. That in a sense is the essence of it. It would have been better for humankind to stay ignorant than gaining knowledge.

The book did not even bring anything interesting to the table relation to the separation of church and state. Or did it? Did I miss something?

[Susan]

I finished this yesterday and I loved it. When I get a little free time, I’ll put my thoughts together.

[Susan]

My review is here. I loved the book and look forward to rereading it sometime.

[Richard, Astro]

Ryan wrote: "I'm about halfway and I'm struggling. The plot/worldbuilding has potential but it's progressing very slowly, I don't particularly care about any of the characters, and the religious parts are unfam..."

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. at its heart is dystopic. That said, it is possible that the rate at which the plot reads A Canticle for Leibowitzis directly related to the fact that the setting is a post-nuclear war world. As such, one would expect the vestiges of the past take a long time to become "safe." Also, things that might help to determine the extent of the residual radiation might not be something one would find in a religious venue. The rate of the decay, the amount of the contamination of the area, and the duration of the initial bombardment all have an overall effect on the severity of the radioactive elements dispersed -- all have a part to play on an area becoming less contaminated over time. Walter M. Miller Jr. plotting for the long duration is one way of treating this decay of contaminating elements. At least that was how I read A Canticle for Leibowitz. Hope that helps a bit on the plotting and the duration of the first part of the work.

Richard Buro, the moderator.

[Susan]

What I liked most about the long duration of the book was that it could tell the story of an entire civilization just by focusing on three distinct periods: the dark ages, the renaissance, and the space age.

This structure is completely different from another post-apocalyptic book I love, Earth Abides, which was also about the rebuilding of civilization, but it focused on the lifespan of a single person.

Instead of focusing on a single person, A Canticle for Leibowitz makes the Catholic Church the main character of the book.