A Canticle for Leibowitz
by Walter M. Miller Jr.
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Book Summary Information
Author: Walter M. Miller Jr.Edition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1984-06-01
ISBN: 0553273817
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Bantam Spectra
Book Reviews of A Canticle for Leibowitz
Book Review: A Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
Absolutely the most profound book I have ever read. I read it first as a teenager and initially found it amusing and was suckered in by the humourous exploits of the simple-minded Francis, only to be horrified and moved by the end of the book. I will further comment that, like _The Exorcist_, it is a book which can be most appreciated by one who was raised in the Catholic faith, though it is an excellent read for anyone. Being fluent in Latin wouldn't hurt, either. I have read it no fewer than ten times in the past eighteen years or so, and always come away from it staggered, and utterly amazed that I find something new, different, and profound with each read. This is not a book for the dimwitted or unimaginitive, and you should not expect quick or easy gratification from it. Nor should you expect to grasp it entirely on the first or even second read. I spent half a semester dissecting this book in a literature class in college, and still to this day find new aspects each time I read it.
Incidently, _Fiat Voluntas Tua_ usually translates as "Thy will Be Done" (as in the line from the Lord's Prayer), which does not bode well for the characters of the third section of the book, or for mankind as a whole.
_Fiat Lux_ is "Let there be Light" and _Fiat Homo_ is "Let there be Man".
A _canticle_ is a holy song of praise, as might be sung in the Church in celebration of a Saint (i.e. Leibowitz).
This book has occasionally been referred to as a youth's book. Though as a teenager I enjoyed the book immensely, I can hardly see Miller writing such graphic and horrific passages dealing with mature subjects like cannibalism, warfare, euthanasia, and injury and death associated with nuclear detonation, with children or teens in mind.
Miller has quite a sense of humour, and if the reader is literate at all he will find himself getting many good belly laughs out of the book. But do not mistake the fact that Miller is deadly serious about the subject matter. I assure you that you will not be laughing at the final few paragraphs.
That is the really the charm of this book, you know, that Miller uses wit and an (initially) deceptively simple plot to gently introduce and bind us to some concepts which few can take pleasure from, but whose implications are profound in the extreme.
I have lately been wrestling with a real life analogue of the "abominable autoscribe" (Kurzweil Voice for Windows) and in doing so have noted an eerie parallel with the book. One can only wonder what other concepts imagined by Miller will come to life <gulp>
Summary of A Canticle for Leibowitz
In the depths of the Utah desert, long after the Flame Deluge has scoured the earth clean, a monk of the Order of Saint Leibowitz has made a miraculous discovery: holy relics from the life of the great saint himself, including the blessed blueprint, the sacred shopping list, and the hallowed shrine of the Fallout Shelter.In a terrifying age of darkness and decay, these artifacts could be the keys to mankind's salvation. But as the mystery at the core of this groundbreaking novel unfolds, it is the search itself?for meaning, for truth, for love?that offers hope for humanity's rebirth from the ashes.
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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