Captivating post-apocalyptic tale set in the Southwestern United States centuries following massive nuclear war that plunged the civilized world into a new dark age comparable to Europe's Early Middle Ages where nearly the entire population is illiterate and scattered in rustic tribes. And similar to those chaotic medieval years, Christian monks keep the flame of learning alive by copying and memorizing the contents of books.
A Canticle for Leibowitz is counted among the classic works of science fiction, the only novel by author Walter M. Miller, Jr. to be published during his lifetime, a decidedly philosophical tale well worth the read. So as not to reveal too much respecting plot, I'll make a reviewer's sideways shuffle and highlight a number of themes and topics I found especially provocative:
The Simplification
Following worldwide nuclear war, the Flame Deluge, where cities were reduced to puddles of glass, following the fallout and plagues, there arose The Simplification where the mass of survivors held educated persons responsible for the catastrophe and formed into simpleton packs that would burn books and kill anyone who was literate. Such action reminded me of the murderous Khmer Rouge in Cambodia as well as what the boy and his papa encountered in Cormac McCarthy's The Road.
Books and Learning
A certain group of monks honor the memory of Isaac Leibowitz who was martyred for his safeguarding scientific knowledge in the era of all those simpletons, honor him by becoming bookleggers (smuggling books into their monastery) or memorizers (committing to rote memory entire volumes of history, sacred texts, literature and science). In this way I recall those women and men who committed great works of literature to memory in Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451.
Comedy of Errors
Walter M. Miller, Jr. injects a bit of humor throughout his book, most notably when young Francis is out in the desert and encounters an old man and then accidentally discovers a 1950s style Fallout Shelter that Leibowitz used. Leibowitz's memos, racing form, grocery list and blueprint are taken for important, even sacred, documents which just goes to show how low the level of insight and understanding dipped down in these dark, futuristic times.
Physical Beatings
When Francis reports to his abbot following the hubbub he created over his discovery of those documents in the Fallout Shelter and his encountering an old man that might have been a vision of Leibowitz, he's on the receiving end of repeated whacks from the abbot's stick. Such cruelty and stupidity! Does this monastery really count for the light of learning in the age of darkness? I was wondering if author Walter M. Miller, Jr. was making a statement about the human tendency, even within a spiritual community, for violence and inflicting pain.
Mutants
At the time Miller wrote his novel the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made a powerful impression on the national psyche and there was a general horror at the prospect of genetic deformities resulting from nuclear fallout. In one of his 1950s novels, Philip K. Dick details a carnival sideshow of such human monstrosities with feathers, scales, tails, wings or without eyes or faces. Likewise, journeying to New Rome, Francis passes The Valley of the Misborn, a leperlike colony peopled by "warped and crawling things that sought refuge from the world."
Culture and Renaissance
The second section of Canticle takes place some five hundred years after the time of Francis. One of the monks rediscovers electricity. But this Catholic monastery is hardly Castalia from Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game - there remains a raging conflict of religion versus science: for example, one old monk claims such scientific experimentation and discoveries should be avoided as the work of the Devil. At another point this same old monk regales a visiting scientific scholar as "Sir, Philosopher" in a mocking, condescending tone, giving little doubt that asking questions and probing into nature is to be shunned.
Shamanism
There's a sequence out among one of the rustic tribes where the leader, one Mad Bear, relates that insanity is prized by his shaman as the most intense of supernatural visitations. Not unlike most writers back in the 1950s unless they were cultural anthropologists, author Miller's ideas surrounding shamanism is little more than a cartoon image. Too bad such traditions were unappreciated by the tale's futuristic monks and scientists, they might have learned something!
Benjamin
Remember that old man Francis encountered? He's still around! Hundreds of years later old Benjamin the Jew is still living out in the desert as a hermit. Has the old man transcended the boundaries of individuality and becomes all of Israel? What could the abbot and monks learn from old Benjamin? Would they even listen?
The Poet
One of the more intriguing parts of the novel is the inclusion of a surly poet staying at the monastery who can remove one of his eyes. There's a long-standing joke among the monks that the removal of the poet's eye signifies what it means to remove one's inner conscience.
Cycle of Destruction
The novel's third part is some six hundred years further into the future. There are nuclear weapons capable of ending human life on earth. Although there are also some other technological advances offering escape to some degree, the sense is Miller is making observations about the cyclical nature of creation and destruction in our all too human experience. To discover more details, I encourage you to read this classic for yourself.
“To minimize suffering and to maximize security were natural and proper ends of society and Caesar. But then they became the only ends, somehow, and the only basis of law—a perversion. Inevitably, then, in seeking only them, we found only their opposites: maximum suffering and minimum security.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz
American science fiction writer Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1923 - 1996) was a tail gunner flying more than 50 bombing missions over Italy during World War II, one mission the bombing and destruction of the Benedictine Abbey at Monte Cassino, a traumatic experience for the author.
Comments
Post a Comment