"A Canticle for ..." Tone and Power (spoilers allowed)

[Kersplebedeb]

last night the family decided to stay up til 3am watching some horror B-movie, which was good for me as i got to stay up with a glass of irish whiskey and make my way through Fiat Homo, the first part of Canticle for Leibowitz.

It's been a few years since the last time i read this book - which i rate as one of the best SF works i've ever come across - and what struck me last night was the wry humour that underlay almost every scene. i am not sure if the appropriate term is "pessimistic" or "cynical", neither seems completely appropriate, but they're also certainly present as major themes in Miller's historical vision of the future - though from memory as the book progresses this gloomy outlook always serves as a kind of foil, a backdrop to highlight those individuals who live a more innocent or at least less "corrupt" or worldly relationship to power.

A few things jumped out at me: a lot of the humour, and a lot of the storyline, throughout Fiat Homo deal with the different ways that the different characters relate to power and the official beliefs of their society. And what makes this delicious from the reader's perspective is that in a certain sense (because the story is set in a "past" set in the future) we know a lot more about this society, and what to take seriously and what to consider otherwise, than Francis or the other characters.

From memory, as the story progresses, this fun sense the reader has that we know more about the evolving society than its own inhabitants is kept alive, in part because we get to encounter elements from earlier in the book reappearing as historical artifacts or legends or pseudohistory later on. Miller's wry humour sets the perfect tone for this kind of storytelling, IMO

In terms of relationships to power and the ideology of this society, Francis (the protagonist in Fiat Homo) is the most naive. A lot of humour comes out of this - i.e. his exchanges with Arkos where the abbot asks him whether Elijah was "just a normal man, nothing supernatural", and by merely asking the question Francis is thrown into uncertainty and confound Arkos' plan to squelch unpolitic rumours about the pilgrim.

As the book progresses, the lowly Francis is viewed by history as an increasingly important figure, which is also a pleasing twist both unsettling the idea of history faithfully representing the past, and in a sense giving the likeable-but-not-too-sharp monk a reward in posterity for all his patience and suffering while he was alive.

[Margaret]

i am not sure if the appropriate term is "pessimistic" or "cynical", neither seems completely appropriate

How about "ironic"?

[Veronika KaoruSaionji]

I love Francis so much! So sweet creature... So much human. So real!
I belive that many "saints" from early middle-age were similar simple, kind, good personalities. I love such people. Francis was amazing being for me. I am very grateful for him! (And I mourned for is death. But in terms of history, all people must to die, also it was O. K.)
I love Miller´s humor, too. And for me is this novel certainly one of the best scifi books I ever read.

[Rodney]

It has been a while since I read this book, but I always felt in my reading that Francis was guilty of both pride and idolatry. In addition to this, the thought kept coming to me when Francis visited the Pope he was seeing the flaws of the room, but missing the fact the Pope lived a life of luxury beyond what parishioners and that there was a coloration to present day.

This is not totally my opinion, but it was some of the impressions going though my mind when reading the book.