Post-Apocalyptic Monks: Walter M. Miller Jr. – A Canticle For Leibowitz

Wow, this seems to be my year for catching up on older Hugo Award winners that I thought I’d never get to. After discoving that the Vorkosigan Saga is, indeed, pretty cool and everyone was right about that, I dove straight into one of the most mentioned award winners of science fiction, knowing very little about it. And that worked out quite well.

A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ
by Walter M. Miller Jr.

Published: Bantam Spectra, 1959
Ebook: 354 pages
Standalone
My rating: 7.25/10

Opening line: Brother Francis Gerard of Utah might never have discovered the blessed documents, had it not been for the pilgrim with girded loins who appeared during that young novice’s Lenten fast in the desert.

In the depths of the Utah desert, long after the Flame Deluge has scoured the earth clean, the rediscoveries of science are secretly nourished by cloistered monks dedicated to the study and preservation of knowledge.

By studying the Holy Relics of the past, the Order of St. Leibowitz hopes to raise humanity from its fallen state to one of grace.

But is such knowledge the key to salvation? Or the certain sign that we are doomed to repeat our most grievous mistakes…?

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Here’s a book that can be appreciated much better when one acquaints oneself a little with the time period it was written. I, of course, jumped in head first, not looking left or right, just trying to take in and enjoy the story. But thankfully, the Sword & Laser podcast gave a bit of background information that I found highly useful and that definitely furthered my enjoyment of this book. Science fiction written at a time when the internet or cell phones were not invented yet, technology that is now ubiquitous and considered normal hadn’t even been conceived of yet, can easily feel dated or silly. Like Connie Willis’s time travel books where everyone keeps using landlines for some reason. A similar “problem” exists within this book, although it was easy enough to just glance over it and focus on the message of the book. Which, fortunately/unfortunately, is one that is as relevant today as it was in the late fifties.

I almost put this book aside after reading the first couple of pages because the writing style is both a bit convoluted, speckled with Latin, and didn’t exactly flow off the page easily for me. This did get better after a while and especially once the first big reveal (which isn’t a spoiler at all, really) happens and I simply wanted to know more about this world.
We first meet a young monk named Brother Francis during his fast in the desert. He is hungry (duh!) and maybe not quite himself, so he’s not completely sure if the stranger he meets is really there or a figment of his imagination. But that stranger interacts with him, leaves mark that proves his existence and, on purpose or inadvertently (?), leads Brother Francis to a rather important discovery that will impact the entire rest of the story. Because he stumbles across an underground space with the words FALLOUT SHELTER on the door…

Aaaaaand I was hooked. Not looking up much about the book helped, because I had no clue that it was a post-apocalyptic setting where humanity had simply lost so much of its collective knowledge that we essentially went back to a middle age standard of living. No electricity, barely any literacy outside the clergy, and very little idea of large parts of our history. So Brother Francis’s discovery starts something that snowballs into the rest of the novel, which spans a lot longer than I had expected too.

The book is told in three parts, each of which tells its own story within its own time period. While the first part is all about Brother Francis and the documents from one (soon to be Saint?) Leibowitz, his story ends. Quite decisively.
Then we jump ahead in time, several hundreds of years, to a new time period where Francis is history, yet his actions have ripple effects that have changed the face of the Earth. I really loved learning and understanding how humanity progressed and how it all comes back to that one day in the desert. The second part of the book rings in an age of enlightenment, where sciences are once again celebrated, where people invent things.
I don’t want to say too much about the last part, but it, too, jumps ahead in time, to a period with technology galore, with space travel and atomic bombs. And all the dangers and trials that come with that knowledge and power…

The connecting strand between these stories is the Order of Saint Leibowitz, as we follow one or several of its monks during each time period. I did not like all of them unreservedly, but it did make for an interesting juxtaposition, with the church not only very powerful up until and during the age of space travel, but with Christian rules persevering throughout the eras as well. I found this the most intriguing – and the protagonist monk the least likable – in the third part of the book, where questions of euthanasia are raised. The abbot in this time period has a long argument with a medical doctor that I found fascinating to read, even though I’m not sure it’s believable. The right thing to do in the cases described in this book is so obvious to me that it brokes no argument, especially from someone who has no real clue what he’s talking about. It’s all very well telling someone else to “just suffer because God appreciates it” when it’s not you who does the suffering.
I’m also not sure that religion would remain as powerful and pervasive when science and empirical reasearch are so well established as to lead humanity to explore the stars. But all of those doubts (and my own atheism) aside, I was quite fond of the monks as protagonists and seeing humanity grow out of the dark ages through their eyes.

The message or maybe the warning of this book becomes obvious rather soon, namely that humanity is really messed up and apparently doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over. And wouldn’t it be nice if we did things differently this time around? Like not slaughter each other for stupid reasons? A Canticle for Leibowitz has a lot to say about this, and while a lot of it comes up in actual dialogue between abbots and monks or monks and scientists, much of it also happens between the lines. It’s a book that makes you think and ponder, makes you wonder if maybe humans really shouldn’t be that powerful, if we wouldn’t all be better off staying in caves and going out to hunt only for survival.

There were so many things I liked about this book, especially when viewed as a product of its time. The fear of the most powerful nations possibly bombing each other to pieces was present and real and it shows on every page.
This was not, however, a particularly fun book to read. There is humor, sure, but it’s not exactly the fast paced or adventurous kind of science fiction. The frequent Latin phrases, the whole religious mumbo jumbo, I accepted as part of the narrative and the chosen points of view, but it wasn’t a bonus for me, merely something to just go along with.

I also understand that the main trope of the book – the remnants of humanity re-building after an apocalyptic event – may be old hat by now, but surely felt fresh and new when the book came out. I absolutely understand why it won the Hugo Award in 1961 and I’m glad I’ve read it. It really must have blown people’s minds back then!

MY RATING: 7.25/10 – Very good