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A Canticle for Leibowitz |
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Author:
Walter M Miller
By Bantam Doubleday Dell
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: $2.95
Our Price: $6.00
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Product Description
Winner of the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel and widely considered one of the most accomplished, powerful, and enduring classics of modern speculative fiction, Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz is a true landmark of twentieth-century literature -- a chilling and still-provocative look at a post-apocalyptic future. In a nightmarish ruined world slowly awakening to the light after sleeping in darkness, the infant rediscoveries of science are secretly nourished by cloistered monks dedicated to the study and preservation of the relics and writings of the blessed Saint Isaac Leibowitz. From here the story spans centuries of ignorance, violence, and barbarism, viewing through a sharp, satirical eye the relentless progression of a human race damned by its inherent humanness to recelebrate its grand foibles and repeat its grievous mistakes. Seriously funny, stunning, and tragic, eternally fresh, imaginative, and altogether remarkable, A Canticle for Leibowitz retains its ability to enthrall and amaze. It is now, as it always has been, a masterpiece.
Amazon.com Review
Walter M. Miller's acclaimed SF classic A Canticle for Leibowitz opens with the accidental excavation of a holy artifact: a creased, brittle memo scrawled by the hand of the blessed Saint Leibowitz, that reads: "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels--bring home for Emma." To the Brothers of Saint Leibowitz, this sacred shopping list penned by an obscure, 20th-century engineer is a symbol of hope from the distant past, from before the Simplification, the fiery atomic holocaust that plunged the earth into darkness and ignorance. As 1984 cautioned against Stalinism, so 1959's A Canticle for Leibowitz warns of the threat and implications of nuclear annihilation. Following a cloister of monks in their Utah abbey over some six or seven hundred years, the funny but bleak Canticle tackles the sociological and religious implications of the cyclical rise and fall of civilization, questioning whether humanity can hope for more than repeating its own history. Divided into three sections--Fiat Homo (Let There Be Man), Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light), and Fiat Voluntas Tua (Thy Will Be Done)--Canticle is steeped in Catholicism and Latin, exploring the fascinating, seemingly capricious process of how and why a person is canonized. --Paul Hughes
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Wonderful, memorable, saddening, and brilliant, 2008-12-22
Canticle For Leibowitz is an amazing post-apocalyptic novel. A wonderful assessment of the human condition, the place of religion in despair, the cyclical nature of humanity. It is well written, well developed, and moving.
Written almost 50 years ago during the height of the Cold War, it resonates on a new level today.
Highly recommended.
Beauitful, challenging, and morally insistent, 2008-12-12
A Canticle for Leibowitz was written in the shadow of the Cold War, and it's easy to be thankful that we managed not to destroy ourselves in a nuclear holocaust, but the deeper questions about the way we use knowledge and the dangers of science misapplied are important and vital. Miller puts together a riveting story about the cyclical nature of human history and the tension between faith and reason (or church and state if you prefer, although there's much more at stake than that). We are taken on a trek through the centuries as man recovers from a nuclear holocaust, the Church is left for centuries as the last guardians of human knowledge, and eventually civilization is rebuilt only to collapse again in a second nuclear war.
Throughout, we bear witness to the folly not of man's quest for knowledge, but of man's quest for knowledge without the moral compass necessary to guide that quest. For centuries, the abbey of the monks of St. Leibowitz (a scientist, and then martyr, who founded the order to protect and perpetuate science and knowledge through the post-apocalyptic dark age) is the last home to the books of the devastated civilization, and it becomes a metaphor for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It's the knowledge contained in the books that dooms mankind to repeatedly destroy itself, and failure to eat of that fruit could save us all. But it's also more complicated than that. There is never any question that the preservation of the books is a noble calling, so it becomes even more imperative that man learn to use that knowledge wisely. Reason may provide what salvation we can hope to find in life, but it may also destroy us.
The only character to reappear throughout every age is the Wandering Jew, cursed to keep searching for the Second Coming. Interestingly enough, he never finds Jesus. We are left to wonder at the end if he will ever find peace, although the closing scene offers some hope that he will. There is an interesting scene in the beginning in which he is mistaken for Leibowitz, and another scene later in which he refers to Leibowitz as a former kinsman, and of course we are left to consider that Leibowitz - a Jew - has become one of the most important saints in a new Catholic rebirth.
The very last scene of this book is the one I find most complex. I think you could level a complain that Miller simply resorts to a (more or less) literal deus ex machina, but I also think (given the rest of this incredibly intricate book) that that would be a disservice to the author. The restoration of innocence comes from a deeply unlikely place, and the narrative arc for this character raises far more issues than it solves. At the risk of ruining one of the best puzzles Miller has to offer, though, I will say no more.
Except this: read this book. It is one of the finest works of the last half century, and it is one of the finest pieces of science fiction ever put to paper.
Words fail me in trying to describe who cool this book is , 2008-12-11
As I looked at the cover I thought "oh golly gee another post apocalyptic piece of crap." We all know the score for these types of books usually follows A. The Trials of an isolated community that has somehow become the last vestige of civilization or B. The chronicle of an army of survivalists attempting to reinstate what they see as the natural order of things.
This was my understanding of what books of this type were supposed to be. I was (thankfully) incredibly wrong. Divided into three parts of 600 years or so first detailing the struggle of a post apocalyptic monastic order in a more or less dark age setting a renaissance setting and finally a post modern setting. What seems at fist to be a simple story about people who want to survive becomes something greater and more complex as the novel progresses.
Will humanity ever learn from its mistakes or are we just doomed to repeat them for the rest of eternity?
Can human knowledge ever truly be preserved? Is the cost of keeping hidden knowledge alive worth martyrdom?
When we finally leave earth for the last time will it be to create a New Eden on some distant star or will we simply take our problems with us?
Overall-Thought provoking and even though at times the Latin references can be extremely frustrating this is one of the deepest books I have read in years.
St. Leibowitz: A Post-apocalyptic Saint for our Times, 2008-11-06
A truly classic novel is one that reveals deeper layers every time it is read. Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz is one of the all-time classics of science fiction, and if it weren't such a Catholic book, would undoubtedly be rated as highly in literature as 1984 and Brave New World, though some reviewers rate it that highly anyway. Miller's book, a collection of three novelettes, is actually deeper than either of those distopian visions, possibly even surpassing C.S. Lewis's space trilogy in terms of character development, solid theology, realistic vision, and mystical insight.
Written as the cold war was heating up, Walter Miller chronicled a three-part history of one abbey on the edge of the Utah desert, starting from two centuries after a nuclear holocaust. The first part, Fiat Homo ("And He created Man"), occurs during the second Dark Ages, and involves the beatification of Isaac Leibowitz, a former weapons engineer who founded an order of monks to preserve the fragmentary knowledge that survived the nuclear war. During this time, life in the abbey reflects in loving detail the Medieval mindset that values eternity above all else. Fiat Lux ("Let there be Light") is set during the second Renaissance a few hundred years later, in which the world discovers science and international politics. Finally in Fiat Voluntas Tua ("Thy Will be Done"), events occurring in a second modern age impact the monks and nuns in ways similar to how the world affects us today.
The first layer of Canticle mesmerized me with its development of saints. This is especially well done in the first part -- Miller beautifully portrays his protagonists as unpretentious and earnest souls who were simply trying to do the best they could with the limited gifts that God gave them. Later generations often revered them, as the ordinary events in their lives mythical proportions. I really liked the ambiguity with which Miller surrounded most of the miracles he recounted -- just as in real life, miracles do not convert those who have refused to believe, while for those with faith, miracles are unnecessary for belief. Miller's portrayal of the unfolding of history is wonderful, and I never saw such a powerful anti-war retelling of WW III until I saw the playground scene in Terminator II.
A second layer of meaning can be found in the theological issues underlying the entire book. The conflict between science and religion provides much of the tension in the second Renaissance -- as it did in the (real) first one. But theological issues become most obvious in the last section, in which the Church battles the heresies of modernism and euthanasia -- as it does today. What is amazing is how accurately Miller portrayed the roots of the pro-euthaniasia groups, calling them the world's oldest and greatest heresies: that pain is the worst evil, and that society determines right and wrong. Miller's predictions about social issues are no different than those made by many popes in the Twentieth century, so perhaps his success in predicting them should not be surprising. Predictions aside, only C.S. Lewis and Peter Kreeft have been able to weave the practical consequences of theological issues into stories as well as Miller did.
The mystical third layer is usually impenetrable to the logical and engineering geeks (like me) that normally read many science fiction books. Obviously, Miller looks at suffering and death very differently than secular writers do -- as a Catholic, how could he do otherwise? But the last time I reread Canticle, what really floored me was his vision of the Immaculate Conception. Mysteries are unfathomable by nature, but sometimes it possible to catch a glimpse beyond the veil. At such times, I can understand why after seeing a vision of heaven, Thomas Aquinas put down his pen and never wrote again -- declaring that all he had ever written was straw. It is absolutely true. I owe Miller a deep debt of gratitude for the glimpse he gave me (though I haven't quite laid down my pen yet :-) ).
The only possible drawback of Canticle is that it was written before Vatican II, and Miller did not foresee the practical disappearance of Latin as the linga franca of the Church.[...]
Miller treated the Catholic Church with affection in Canticle, though not without criticism, alluding to Church politics and theological hair-splitting. His increasing disenchantment with the Church became obvious in his sequel, St. Leibowitz and the Horse Woman, which unfortunately does not even come close to his other work. Some of his short stories are as good as Canticle (especially "Gray Benediction"), so I was really hoping for a masterpiece. Unfortunately, his "sequel", set soon after the second section of Canticle, is a bitter story of political machination, wasted love, and confused theology. The protagonist is a monk who is not well suited for monastic life, so he ends up involved in the tumultuous events surrounding a succession of the Papacy. Meanwhile, he falls in love with a mysterious woman, adding further conflict and doubt to his already troubled faith. Many of the same themes appear as in Canticle -- especially the nature of Christian faith in a very human world full of conflict. However unlike Canticle, the sequel is more graphic in its portrayal of sexuality and violence, and refuses to answer any of the deep questions of faith posed to the characters. That bothered me the most, since he had done such a masterful job of doing so in Canticle. The character development in the sequel is probably better than most science fiction (with the exception of Donaldson's The Real Story), but I was *very* disappointed.
As book-reviewer Paul Ziring put it, "Perhaps an author only gets one such inspiration as Canticle per lifetime". That may be true, but like Aquinas' straw, such an inspiration sheds light for generations.
(This review originally published in Credo, January 11, 1999)
 No cause for excitement, 2008-10-17
Thanks to the previous reviews and the collective high rating, I gave this book 4 opportunities to give me a reason to stay. The 4th came 2/3 of the way through. Normally, I would not have stayed that long but felt like I just wasn't getting it and did so want to. However, no memorable characters, a wandering plot and a pretty nothing premise forced me to not just shelve the book, but to actually throw it in the trash. It was certainly no invitation to try out sequel that took 40 years to put out. Pretty much the stupidest read that I can remember, and I have tried to choke down a many of one.
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
EAN: 9780553209907
ISBN: 0553209906
Label: Bantam Doubleday Dell
Manufacturer: Bantam Doubleday Dell
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 313
Publication Date: 1982-03
Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell
Studio: Bantam Doubleday Dell |
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