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A Canticle for Leibowitz Mass Market Paperback – June 1, 1984
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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.
- Print length368 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSpectra
- Publication dateJune 1, 1984
- Dimensions4.15 x 0.94 x 6.83 inches
- ISBN-100553273817
- ISBN-13978-0553273816
- Lexile measure1000L
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Angry, eloquent ... a terrific story.”— The New York Times
“An extraordinary novel ... Prodigiously imaginative, richly comic, terrifyingly grim, profound both intellectually and morally, and, above all ... simply such a memorable story as to stay with the reader for years.”— Chicago Tribune
“An exciting and imaginative story ... Unconditionally recommended.”— Library Journal
From the Publisher
Watched over by an immortal wanderer, they witnessed humanity's rebirth from ashes, and saw reenacted the eternal drama of the struggle between light and darkness, life and death.
From the Inside Flap
In the Utah desert, Brother Francis of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz has made a miraculous discovery: the relics of the martyr Isaac Leibowitz himself, including the blessed blueprint and the sacred shopping list. They may provide a bright ray of hope in a terrifying age of darkness, a time of ignorance and genetic monsters that are the unholy aftermath of the Flame Deluge. But as the spellbinding mystery at the core of this extraordinary novel unfolds, it is the search itself--for meaning, for truth, for love--that offers hope to a humanity teetering on the edge of an abyss.
A timeless and still timely masterpiece, A Canticle for Leibowitz is a classic that ranks with Brave New World and 1984.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
From the Back Cover
In the Utah desert, Brother Francis of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz has made a miraculous discovery: the relics of the martyr Isaac Leibowitz himself, including the blessed blueprint and the sacred shopping list. They may provide a bright ray of hope in a terrifying age of darkness, a time of ignorance and genetic monsters that are the unholy aftermath of the Flame Deluge. But as the spellbinding mystery at the core of this extraordinary novel unfolds, it is the search itself--for meaning, for truth, for love--that offers hope to a humanity teetering on the edge of an abyss.
A timeless and still timely masterpiece, "A Canticle for Leibowitz is a classic that ranks with "Brave New World and "1984.
"From the Trade Paperback edition.
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
At last he broke the hinges, and the lid fell free. Small metal tidbits bounced from trays, spilled among the rocks, some of them falling irretrievably into crevices. But, in the bottom of the box in the space beneath the trays, he beheld--papers! After a quick prayer of thanksgiving, he regathered as many of the scattered tidbits as he could, and, after loosely replacing the lid, began climbing the hill of debris toward the stairwell and the thin patch of sky, with the box hugged tightly under one arm.
The sun was blinding after the darkness of the shelter. He scarcely bothered to notice that it was sinking dangerously low in the west, but began at once to search for a flat slab on which the contents of the box could be spread for examination without risk of losing anything in the sand.
Minutes later, seated on a cracked foundation slab, he began removing the tidbits of metal and glass that filled the trays. Most of them were small tubular things with a wire whisker at each end of each tube. These, he had seen before. The abbey's small museum had a few of them, of various size, shape and color. Once he had seen a shaman of the hill-pagan people wearing a string of them as a ceremonial necklace. The hill people thought of them as "parts of the body of the god"--of the fabled Machina analytica, hailed as the wisest of their gods. By swallowing one of them, a shaman could acquire "Infallibility," they said. He certainly acquired Indisputability that way, among his own people--unless he swallowed one of the poison kind. The similar tidbits in the museum were connected together too--not in the form of a necklace, but as a complex and rather disorderly maze in the bottom of a small metal box, exhibited as: "Radio Chassis: Application Uncertain."
Inside the lid of the carrying case, a note had been glued; the glue had powdered, the ink had faded, and the paper was so darkened by rusty stains that even good handwriting would have been hard enough to read, but this was written in a hasty scrawl. He studied it intermittently while emptying the trays. It seemed to be English, of a sort, but half an hour passed before he deciphered most of the message:
CARL--
Must grab plane for [undecipherable] in twenty minutes. For God's sake, keep Em there till we know if we're at war. Please! try to get her on the alternate list for the shelter. Can't get her a seat on my plane. Don't tell her why I sent her over with this box of junk, but try to keep her there till we know [undecipherable] at worst, one of the alternates not show.
I.E.L.
P.S. I put the seal on the lock and put TOP SECRET on the lid just to keep Em from looking inside. First tool box I happened to grab. Shove it in my locker or something.
The note seemed hasty gibberish to Brother Francis, who was at the moment too excited to concentrate on any single item more than the rest. After a final sneer at the notewriter's hasty scrawl, he began the task of removing the tray-racks to get at the papers in the bottom of the box. The trays were mounted on a swinging linkage which was obviously meant to swing the trays out of the box in stair-step array, but the pins were rusted fast, and Francis found it necessary to pry them out with a short steel tool from one of the tray compartments.
When Brother Francis had removed the last tray, he touched the papers reverently: only a handful of folded documents here, and yet a treasure; for they had escaped the angry flames of the Simplification, wherein even sacred writings had curled, blackened, and withered into smoke while ignorant mobs howled and hailed it a triumph. He handled the papers as one might handle holy things, shielding them from the wind with his habit, for all were brittle and cracked from age. There was a sheaf of rough sketches and diagrams. There were hand-scribbled notes, two large folded papers, and a small book entitled Memo.
First he examined the jotted notes. They were scrawled by the same hand that had written the note glued to the lid, and the penmanship was no less abominable. Pound pastrami, said one note, can kraut, six bagels--bring home for Emma. Another reminded: Remember--pick up Form 1040, Uncle Revenue. Another was only a column of figures with a circled total from which a second amount was subtracted and finally a percentage taken, followed by the word damn! Brother Francis checked the figures; he could find no fault with the abominable penman's arithmetic, at least, although he could deduce nothing about what the quantities might represent.
Memo, he handled with special reverence, because its title was suggestive of "Memorabilia." Before opening it, he crossed himself and murmured the Blessing of Texts. But the small book proved a disappointment. He had expected printed matter, but found only a handwritten list of names, places, numbers and dates. The dates ranged through the latter part of the fifth decade, and earlier part of the sixth decade, twentieth century. Again it was affirmed!--the contents of the shelter came from the twilight period of the Age of Enlightenment. An important discovery indeed.
Of the larger folded papers, one was tightly rolled as well, and it began to fall apart when he tried to unroll it; he could make out the words RACING FORM, but nothing more. After returning it to the box for later restorative work, he turned to the second folded document; its creases were so brittle that he dared inspect only a little of it, by parting the folds slightly and peering between them.
A diagram, it seemed, but--a diagram of white lines on dark paper!
Again he felt the thrill of discovery. It was clearly a blueprint!--and there was not a single original blueprint left at the abbey, but only inked facsimiles of several such prints. The originals had faded long ago from overexposure to light. Never before had Francis seen an original, although he had seen enough handpainted reproductions to recognize it as a blueprint, which, while stained and faded, remained legible after so many centuries because of the total darkness and low humidity in the shelter. He turned the document over--and felt brief fury. What idiot had desecrated the priceless paper? Someone had sketched absentminded geometrical figures and childish cartoon faces all over the back. What thoughtless vandal--
The anger passed after a moment's reflection. At the time of the deed, blueprints had probably been as common as weeds, and the owner of the box the probable culprit. He shielded the print from the sun with his own shadow while trying to unfold it further. In the lower right-hand corner was a printed rectangle containing, in simple block letters, various titles, dates, "patent numbers," reference numbers, and names. His eye traveled down the list until it encountered: "CIRCUIT DESIGN BY: Leibowitz, I.E."
He closed his eyes tightly and shook his head until it seemed to rattle. Then he looked again. There it was, quite plainly:
CIRCUIT DESIGN BY: Leibowitz, I.E.
The name was written in a clear feminine hand, not in the hasty scrawl of the other notes. He looked again at the initialed signature of the note in the lid of the box: I.E.L.--and again at "CIRCUIT DESIGN BY. . ." And the same initials appeared elsewhere throughout the notes.
There had been argument, all highly conjectural, about whether the beatified founder of the Order, if finally canonized, should be addressed as Saint Isaac or as Saint Edward. Some even favored Saint Leibowitz as the proper address, since the Beatus had, until the present, been referred to by his surname.
"Beate Leibowitz, ora pro me!" whispered Brother Francis. His hands were trembling so violently that they threatened to ruin the brittle documents.
He had uncovered relics of the Saint.
Excerpted from A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Copyright (c) 1959 by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Excerpted by permission of Bantam Books, a division of the Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Product details
- Publisher : Spectra; . edition (June 1, 1984)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 368 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0553273817
- ISBN-13 : 978-0553273816
- Lexile measure : 1000L
- Item Weight : 6.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 4.15 x 0.94 x 6.83 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #79,530 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #392 in Hard Science Fiction (Books)
- #652 in Dystopian Fiction
- #1,186 in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction (Books)
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Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2022
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A STORY OF CYCLIC FALLS
The story, first published in 1959, opens in our near-future (relative to 1959—around 1980 or so), and covers a stretch of about eighteen hundred years. It is written in three acts, each entitled in Latin. In fact, there is a lot of Latin used in this book, along with Catholic conventions and ideas. The author, Walter M. Miller Jr., was a convert to Catholicism after serving in World War II. Knowing Latin or Catholicism, however, is not necessary to understanding the story, though either would probably help.
The first act is set in the Utah desert in a roughly medieval-level world. Brother Francis, a monk of the Leibowitz Abbey, is fasting in solitude for Lent in a rocky outcropping close to the abbey. Enough tropes from post-apocalyptic science fiction are spread around to orient the reader as to time and place. These include familiar place names used with unfamiliar connotations (Brother Francis of Utah), roads of “broken stone,” deformed human wanderers, references to the nuclear apocalypse (”Flame Deluge”), and terms common to us but mystifying to the characters (”fallout shelter” as a place to hide from the fallout creatures).
The book’s driving plot device is launched when Brother Francis discovers an old fallout shelter containing artifacts relevant to the life of his abbey’s patron saint candidate, Leibowitz. It seems I. E. Leibowitz was an electrical engineer who converted from science to the Catholic faith. This science/faith duality is a major theme of the book.
Most of the first act is Brother Francis coming to terms with the artifacts he has found (which include a blueprint drawn by Leibowitz) and how they affect his vocation, relations with his abbot, the Vatican (in New Rome, North America), and the prospective sainthood of Leibowitz.
The second act is set a few centuries later, in 3174 CE, still around the locale of the Leibowitz Abbey in Utah. Technology has not advanced much, but the abbey has become the keeper of ancient knowledge with a vast basement library. Its holdings, especially regarding Leibowitz, is known as “the Memorabilia.”
The plot in the second act centers around the work of a visiting scholar, Thon Taddeo. He wants to review the Memorabilia as part of the studies he is doing for New Rome. His work in the dark basement library is facilitated by an arc-lamp built by Brother Kornhoer and powered by several monks pushing a wheel. The light works well, as long as the powering monks can hold out. The science/faith theme comes heavily into play, with an initial tolerance by the adherents of both sides (monks vs scholars). That tolerance breaks down towards the end, however, curiously mediated by the neutral character of the Poet.
The third act takes us to the year 3781 CE, when civilization has recovered beyond the technological height it had reached before its previous fall. Now, interstellar space travel is possible.
The action still centers around Leibowitz Abbey in Utah, which is now a modern building adjoining the historic one. Humanity has rediscovered nuclear power. When war threatens, the Vatican launches its plan to preserve Catholicism among the human colonies in space. The current Leibowitz Abbey abbot, Dom Jethrah Zerchi, contributes to the working of that plan from his abbey. He must also contend with refugees fleeing a nuclear blast, complicated by the local medical authorities advocating euthanasia for those terminally irradiated.
As nuclear war escalates, the book draws to a very metaphysically symbolic end.
INTELLECT VS FAITH THEME IN EPIC SCOPE
A Canticle for Leibowitz is epic in its scope, connecting characters and themes across millenia. One thread is that of the character, Lazarus, aka: the pilgrim, Benjamin, Old Lazar, and The Old Jew of the Mountains. His life is longer than the span of the story and offers hope for humanity, or disappointment, depending upon how you view his “search.”
Also, the death of every major character is presented, both violent and natural. This depicts, I think, the brevity of human life within the cycles of civilizations. While the book is full of characters of faith and obedience to God’s Law, there is no assurance of life beyond death. Only the Lazarus character asserts an immortality of sorts. Even then, the emphasis is on long physical life.
This immortality question melds with the science vs faith theme. Lazarus keeps looking for Jesus, but can’t find him. Dom Zerchi braves death with faith, but wavers when his end is certain. Scholars, worshiping science, have to admit their moral bankruptcy when they endorse tyranny for the sake of underwriting their love of tech.
As the years progress in a given civilization cycle, it seems the gap between science (intellect) and faith widens. Which side wins? I think Mr. Miller comes down on the side of faith, though with reservations. See if you agree.
WELL-HANDLED TROPES FROM 1950S PERSPECTIVE
Though long in text and literary scope, A Canticle for Leibowitz is easy to read in spite of all the Latin. There is enough action, suspense, and engaging characters to keep readers engrossed. Those characters are mostly sympathetic, with conflicts coming from differing agendas and opinions rather than just good vs evil. This promotes some thoughtful themes and ideas that linger, possibly even leading to insight.
I liked Mr. Miller’s working of post-apocalypse tropes. Though written from a 1950’s viewpoint, the novel reads pretty much like a current one. The projection of tech is evidently old, however, such as the absence of personal computers and the “power switch” nature of the tech described in the last act. I found this quaint and not a problem.
EXPRESSIONS OF FAITH IN THE FACE OF NONE
A Canticle for Leibowitz reminds me a lot of Neil Shute’s On the Beach in its condemnation of nuclear war’s potential for human extermination. Both novels offer a kind of triumph of the human spirit, though Mr. Shute’s is a spiritual triumph rather than physical. Mr. Miller avers the physical survival of humanity but offers some doubt about a spiritual triumph. He suggests the possibility of delusion.
I much liked A Canticle for Leibowitz and agree that it is a classic of its genre (post-apocalyptic science fiction). Its expressions of faith within harsh environments and hopeless situations make it a story likely to resurface in readers’ minds for a long time. As a consideration of the apocalyptic nature of human technical progress, it offers insight, if not hope, for our time.
Everybody was wrong.
It is not one of the greatest; it is the greatest. A Canticle is everything you could ever want in a science fiction novel, and more. It greatly exceeded the high expectations I had before reading it.
When I say it has everything, that means everything; a bit of sociological sci fi, post-apocalyptic, apocalyptic, steampunk, alternate history, space opera, lost worlds, and a talking kitchen sink (that is only a slight exaggeration). There are battles, harrowing moments, philosophical discussions, and space flights. Miller’s imagination was large enough to encompass all of this, and his abilities as a writer allowed him to put it all into a compelling story that keeps you turning the pages.
Rather than providing us with an overview of the entire universe he possessed in his mind, Miller allows us to view it from a tiny perspective, through little conjoined stories, through glimpses into the lives of people as they experience the world around them. Their bewilderment connects to our own; the ways in which his characters are grasping in the dark allows us to identify with them. Miller develops his characters through actions.
There is a quiet humor here, a belief in the ability of humanity to preserve something worth keeping despite a tendency to self-destruct, and a streak of stubborn independence from the mainstream beliefs of his day that allows this story to become both timeless and exactly what we need to be reading at this moment in time. It is little wonder that Miller never wrote another novel that achieved this kind of success. At 338 pages, he had produced a masterpiece. His later works were derivative of this one. When you have said it all there isn’t anything left to say.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 5, 2022
Everybody was wrong.
It is not one of the greatest; it is the greatest. A Canticle is everything you could ever want in a science fiction novel, and more. It greatly exceeded the high expectations I had before reading it.
When I say it has everything, that means everything; a bit of sociological sci fi, post-apocalyptic, apocalyptic, steampunk, alternate history, space opera, lost worlds, and a talking kitchen sink (that is only a slight exaggeration). There are battles, harrowing moments, philosophical discussions, and space flights. Miller’s imagination was large enough to encompass all of this, and his abilities as a writer allowed him to put it all into a compelling story that keeps you turning the pages.
Rather than providing us with an overview of the entire universe he possessed in his mind, Miller allows us to view it from a tiny perspective, through little conjoined stories, through glimpses into the lives of people as they experience the world around them. Their bewilderment connects to our own; the ways in which his characters are grasping in the dark allows us to identify with them. Miller develops his characters through actions.
There is a quiet humor here, a belief in the ability of humanity to preserve something worth keeping despite a tendency to self-destruct, and a streak of stubborn independence from the mainstream beliefs of his day that allows this story to become both timeless and exactly what we need to be reading at this moment in time. It is little wonder that Miller never wrote another novel that achieved this kind of success. At 338 pages, he had produced a masterpiece. His later works were derivative of this one. When you have said it all there isn’t anything left to say.

Top reviews from other countries

<i>A Canticle for Leibowitz</i> is about the nuclear Holocaust. It is alternative history. Miller imagines that nuclear war broke out in the 1960s, shortly after his novel was written, and that civilisation was destroyed. <i>A Canticle for Leibowitz</i> is amongst other things a post-apocalyptic novel.
Miller’s history is based on the intellectual history of Europe after the fall of Rome. Miller’s concept of history is cyclical. A very similar intellectual sequence is repeated in the former United States, after the nuclear Holocaust. It is also a pessimistic history, even perhaps fatalistic. After two thousand years the Holocaust happens again.
The novel is in three parts, divided from each other by several hundred years. A Dark Age occurs six hundred years after the Holocaust. Six hundred years later, there is a scientific renaissance, and dynastic states are emerging from the chaos. After another six hundred years, an industrial state emerges. It is sophisticated enough to develop nuclear weapons, and launch another nuclear war.
The action of the novel centres on the Albertian Order of Leibowitz. The Albertian order, to my mind, is a wonderful invention of Miller’s. It is a celibate order, modelled rather closely on the Benedictines. Its abbey is in the South-western desert, on the road to ‘Old El Paso’. The members of the order are Bookleggers or Memorisers. They are tasked with preserving the fragments of the scientific knowledge of the ancient ‘Euro-American’ civilisation. They dutifully conserve and copy; they understand very little of the scientific legacy.
Almost all the action takes place in and around the Abbey of the order. Abbots change and the abbey evolves, but the location of the action in the abbey is consistent. It is one of the devices that unites the three parts of the novel.
Much of the record of the ancient culture has been destroyed. The Simplification was a wave of bloody and destructive lynchings and book-burnings that followed the Holocaust – the ‘Flame Deluge’, as Miller dubs it in a passage of biblical pastiche. One of the martyrs of the Simplification is the eponymous founder of the Order, Leibowitz himself.
Leibowitz was a weapons engineer who lost his wife in the Holocaust. He joined the Cistercians, an offshoot of the Benedictines, and became a priest. After some years he was permitted to found his order and preserve the ‘Memorabilia’, as the fragmentary manuscripts are known. ‘Memorabilia’, I think, is another wonderful invention of Miller’s. Albertus Magnus, the patron saint of the order, was a thirteenth-century philosopher and theologian who was very much involved in the revival of science.
The action of the first part of the novel turns on the case for the canonisation of Leibowitz. It is finally successful, and Leibowitz becomes a saint. In the Dark Ages of the opening chapters of <i>A Canticle for Leibowitz</i>, it is the miraculous that matters. At the beginning of the novel the simple novice, Francis, encounters an enigmatic, cynical pilgrim in the desert. The pilgrim, in an illiterate age, knows not only Latin but Hebrew. The pilgrim sets off a chain of events which result in Brother Francis discovering relics of the Blessed Leibowitz. The reader, though not Francis, soon realises that the pilgrim is in fact Leibowitz – six hundred years after his death. This concealing of information from the characters while it is revealed to the reader is an example of the irony that pervades the novel.
Leibowitz is a mysterious, subversive and thoroughly delightful figure. He is the most complex of the characters, to call them that, in the novel. He survives, by some no doubt miraculous means which Miller never explains, his very public martyrdom and death. He is the pilgrim in the first part of the novel and the ‘hermit’ in the second. In the third and final part, he becomes the old beggar. He is, of course, a Catholic priest, a Catholic martyr and finally a Catholic saint. Notwithstanding his emphatically endorsed Catholicism, he is also a Jew.
Leibowitz is, in fact, the Wandering Jew of Medieval legend. He waits for a Messiah. The Messiah never comes. In the world of <i>A Canticle for Leibowitz</i>, there is no hope of salvation. Christ the Redeemer is not present in the novel. Miller, who for several years after World War Two was a Catholic, had lapsed.
In the second part of the novel there is a revival of interest in science. Pfardentrott, a rather mad scientist from the newly emerging state of Texarkana, has heard of the documents. He wants them sent to Texarkana so that his collegium can examine them. Finally he accepts that he has to go to the abbey.
Pfardentrott is shocked. He is shocked because some of the monks have managed to build a primitive dynamo which powers an arc light. He is also shocked because the texts he finds in the abbey are of great value, and no-one other than the monks knew of their existence.
Pfardentrott and the abbot try to be civil. Finally they clash. Pfardentrott believes that religion is superstition. The abbot believes that scientific curiosity is Original Sin. He believes it led to the Flame Deluge, and that the revival of science will lead to another holocaust.
The monks dismantle the dynamo. They take down the arc light and put the crucifix back. Pfardentrott leaves. It is a hollow victory. At the beginning of the third and last part of <i>A Canticle for Leibowitz</i>, the Holocaust is already impending.
The Order has acquired a spaceship. It has been busily recruiting spacers as monks. Its role is to take the memorabilia on microfilm and ensure the continuity of the Apostolic Succession of the Catholic Church on the colony planets among the stars. The idea of a medieval order of monks with a spaceship is rather wonderful.
Someone starts the nuclear war. The monks give shelter of refugees, many of them sick and injured. An organisation called Green Star relief sets up a Mercy Camp down the road. It offers legalised euthanasia to the incurable. The abbot rows with the doctor who is testing the refugees for radiation. The doctor argues that pain is the only form of evil he can deal with. The abbot responds that in the eyes of the church euthanasia is evil.
This is an argument between the values of humanism and the need for obedience to God’s will. The orthodox interpretation of Original Sin is that it is rebellion against God. It could hardly be more serious.
It is not clear who wins. The doctor leaves. The abbot is nearly arrested for picketing the Mercy Camp. He tries to persuade a very sick woman to refuse euthanasia for her child. He fails.
The small party of monks leave for the stars. The abbot is convinced that human beings will display exactly the same self-destructive tendencies on a new planet. This may be survival, in some sense. It is not salvation.
One of the most mysterious and puzzling stories in <i>A Canticle for Leibowitz</i> is the story of Mrs Grales. Mrs Grales is a tomato seller. She suffers from genetic damage as a result of the Flame Deluge. She has a second head growing from her shoulder. She calls the head Rachel, and wants it baptised.
At the end of the novel there is another nuclear strike. The abbot is dying. Mrs Grales has died, but her second head lives on. The abbot tries to baptise her. Rachel refuses. She is preternaturally innocent. She was not born in sin.
The abbot takes Rachel’s innocence as hope for salvation. It is more ambiguous than that. Rachel is innocent, but she is also a mutant. It is not quite clear that she is human. Is Miller suggesting that humanity can only be saved if it evolves into something else?
<i>A Canticle for Leibowitz</i> is saturated with Catholic images. The theology may be heretical. Miller uses it to make his novel deeply coherent intellectually. <i>A Canticle for Leibowitz</i> prophesies nuclear war. It is prophetic in another sense. It is a fundamentally serious tract for the times.
As a young airman Miller participated in a raid on the Abbey of Monte Cassino, the original house of the Benedictine order. As a young husband, the detonation of a nuclear device over Hiroshima spared Miller being posted to the Pacific theatre to risk his life again. Miller’s reflections on these experiences clearly contribute to the writing of <i>A Canticle for Leibowitz</i>.
<i>A Canticle for Leibowitz</i> won a Hugo. The year before, Miller had won his first Hugo for his short novel, <i>The Darfsteller</i>. In <i>The Darfsteller</i> Miller announces his decision to quit science fiction, and his intention of writing ‘one last great’ before he does so. He also predicts that he will not know what to do with the rest of his life.
The ‘one last great’ was <i>A Canticle for Leibowitz</i>. Miller was thirty-seven when it was published. He lived for more than another thirty years. He wrote and published very little. After the death of his wife he committed suicide.
He never did figure out what to do with the rest of his life.

It's essentially 3 novellas set at different times. I'm not a fan of that style because just as you start to get into it, you have to pick up a new story again.
There is only 1 female character in the book and she is only in the last few chapters, but it is set in a monastery.
Based on other reviews I was expecting it to be funnier. Although I did laugh out loud once, I found myself more depressed than amused as the story went on. I simply don't understand why anyone would see this as a comfortable cosy read.
Being an atheist myself I just can't subscribe to the religious arguments in the book although I did appreciate how the arguments are laid out.
Unfortunately though I just didn't enjoy it - the story meanders from one moral debate to the next without feeling like it has any real direction and there a a few things going on which went over the top of my head. I think maybe you need to be an expert on Catholicism to understand them.
Twists and turns: None - it's not that sort of book.
Likeable characters: I didn't like any myself.
I also felt that the author could have spent more time trying to describe the future world in a bit more detail. I felt like some concepts weren't fleshed out enough and I was having to fill in the gaps - maybe that was deliberate though.
Just not enjoyable for me.
On a side note - the story bears similarity to the Babylon 5 season 4 episode: the deconstruction of falling stars. I fully enjoyed that episode because although the themes are very similar I felt it ended with optimism that we will eventually overcome our problems.

The style is of its time and the author assumes readers of his time. So readers who like contemporary fiction may find certain aspects tricky eg the thread of Latin is entirely appropriate to the characters' lives, but readers who don't know Latin are likely to miss the contrast between Latin use by the monks and its use before the catastrophe that wiped out our world. Likewise, readers who aren't familiar with twentieth century Catholic theology will miss subtleties in the narrative, as will non-scientists in aspects of the second section which describes how the monks created a system for electric lighting. But I found it OK to read on anyway, as there are many other aspects to be enjoyed.
It's a highly original book, and deservedly a classic.

A Canticle for Leibovitz consists of three linked novellas set in a catholic monastery over a period of hundreds of years. The first is set in a world plunged into a new dark age in the aftermath of a nuclear war. The cataclysmic conflict was followed by a reaction against learning and a burning of books. In the monastery of the Blessed Leibovitz, monks preserve and copy relics written by a repentant weapons scientist, I E Leibovitz, with no understanding of their meaning or purpose.
In the second section, both a renaissance and a reformation are occurring with a tyrannical ruler displacing the pope as the head of the church, and natural philosophers seeking to mine the archives of the Abbey. In the outside world rulers of disparate small states fight each other in both political and military arenas.
In the final section, humankind has returned to and surpassed the pre holocaust level of technology with spaceflight now a reality, but nuclear weapons have also been reinvented and a familiar shadow hangs over the world.
A Canticle for Leibowitz is very much a novel of its time. It is a very clear child of the 1950s and the immediate threat of nuclear apocalypse. In its portrayal of a rejection of science by the mob, it is informed by growing anti-intellectualism of the Eisenhower/McCarthy era. However, unlike much older science fiction, it has not become dated. Firstly this is because there is not a great deal of technical foresight. There doesn't need to be, this is primarily about a society which has regressed. In the last section there are one or two things which don't ring true (an electrical rather than electronic translator), but these are unimportant in the overall picture. The second reason it hasn't dated is that the themes of nuclear destruction and anti-intellectualism remain completely relevant today. If the former became a less immediate fear with the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is surely only a temporary reduction, the danger is still there and likely to grow again.
The third reason why Canticle for Leibowitz remains relevant is that it isn't really about the future, it is about the present. The central question it asks is whether the human race learn from past mistakes, or is destined by its very nature to repeat them? The answer it gives is, on the surface, a fairly dark one, but not one without hope, in the spark of light kept alive by the monks, and in a potential escape from the cycle of destruction at the end of the novel.
Alongside the central theme, Miller also explores other ethical dilemmas. Is the role of science simply to expand knowledge with no thought for how that knowledge is used by other, or should the scientist take responsibility for the technological uses to which discoveries are put? Very near the end of the book, there is a heartbreaking conflict between a very catholic espousal of the unequivocal protection of life and the use of euthanasia to prevent/end hopeless suffering.
I suspect that a lack of understanding of Catholic doctrine meant that I didn't get as much out of the book as a might have done. There are probably subtleties in the ways in which Miller modifies the monks' practices which I missed. There is also a Lazarus-like figure (is he indeed Lazarus?) whose significance I am still trying to come to terms with. At the end there is also a suggestion of a Second Coming.
This all possibly makes "A Canticle for Leibowitz" sound like a heavy and depressing work. Certainly it is dark, but it is told in smooth flowing prose, and with a constant wry humour, which make it eminently readable.
In conclusion, I am in full agreement with those who have listed this as a classic.

However I enjoyed the general narrative.The Apocalypse, the Book burning Dark ages, Tribalism and the rise of empire , then finally the rediscovery of science and the failure to learn from the past.I understood the character of the wandering Jew but not who he was.I had to read the Wikipedia entry to understand more and despite this still didn’t get some. Rachel was obviously significant and though I understand she was something like the Virgin Mary or the Immaculate Conception I didn’t understand what her place or function was.
Too clever and theological for me.