“A Canticle for Leibowitz” by Walter Miller, Jr.
My husband G. Grod recommended Walter Miller Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz to me several years ago. M, who blogs at Mental Multivitamin, read it within the past year or so (ha! in 2005, actually. I have a long memory, I guess.) and recommended it, then a review at Semicolon intrigued me, so it crept up my to-read list. After my recent reading and appreciating of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic The Road, I moved it to the top of the list. (Bonus for us book geeks–it’s a shelf sitter, so I’m reading a book from home, rather than a new purchase or one from the library.)
The book opens in the 26th or 27th century. A novice monk, Brother Francis, is doing a Lenten hermitage in the desert, when he encounters a wanderer, and then comes across an archeologic find from before the Flame Deluge that took place in the 20th century. Francis’ order is of Leibowitz, a 20th century scientist and martyr whom they’re trying to have canonized. The book is divided into three sections, which I won’t detail as it might spoil an event I found truly shocking and moving. But the central question is whether history must repeat itself:
Listen, are we helpless? Are we doomed to do it again and again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise and fall? Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Carthage, Rome, the Empires of Charlemagne, and the Turk. Ground to dust and plowed with salt. Spain, France, Britain, America–burned into the oblivion of the centures. And again and again and again. (245)
This is a satire of Catholicism, while making the monks and abbots of Leibowitz sympathetic, conflicted and complicated. It’s a post-apocalyptic novel, as well as a theological and philosophical one. I’m off to review the legend of the “wandering Jew,” which might have enriched my reading experience if I’d had it in my mind from the beginning. This book made me feel, made me think, and continues to make me think. While we’re fortunate to have avoided a nuclear war in the 20th century, this novel retains a timeless quality as the threat remains, still, and other questions, like the ethics of euthanasia and the dangers and benefits of progress, remain relevant today.
January 30th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
Great review. I read this book last week and will post my thoughts soon.
January 30th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
I read this last year but didn’t write a review. And, while I did enjoy it, I didn’t love it. Lots of thoughtful passages…especially in the 2nd and 3rd parts. My husband also recommended it to me many years ago.
January 30th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Hope, how weird is it that we both read it in the same week, given it was 40 years old and there was no direct cultural impetus like a movie for it? Deb, I’m not sure I can say I loved it either, though I liked it a great deal and found it provocative. I’m def. glad I read it.
January 30th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
I read this for the first time a couple years and I can easily see myself picking it up again in a few years’ time. I love postapocalypse stories, and I think this is one of the better ones.