A Canticle for Leibowitz
Walter M. Miller, Jr. 1959
Random House
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780553273816
Summary
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. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 23, 1923
• Where—Smyma Beach, Florida, USA
• Death—January, 1996
• Education—University of Tennessee; University of Texas
• Awards—Hugo Award, 1959 (short story) and 1961 (for
Canticle)
Walter M. Miller, Jr. grew up in the American South and enlisted in the Army Air Corps a month after Pearl Harbor. He spent most of World War II as a radio operator and tail gunner, participating in more than fifty-five combat sorties, among them the controversial destruction of the Benedictine abbey at Monte Cassino, the oldest monastery in the Western world. Fifteen years later he wrote A Canticle for Leibowitz. The sequel, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, followed after nearly forty years. (From the publisher.)
More
Walter Michael Miller, Jr. was an American science fiction author. Today he is primarily known for A Canticle for Leibowitz, the only novel he published in his lifetime. Prior to its publication he was a prolific writer of short stories.
Miller was born in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Educated at the University of Tennessee and the University of Texas, he worked as an engineer. During World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps as a radioman and tail gunner, flying 53 bombing missions over Italy. He took part in the bombing of the Benedictine Abbey at Monte Cassino, which proved a traumatic experience for him.
After the war, Miller converted to Catholicism, but did not practice the religion consistently. Miller married Anna Louise Becker in 1945, and they had four children. He lived with science-fiction writer Judith Merril in 1953, and her Jewish cultural heritage informed A Canticle for Leibowitz.
Between 1951 and 1957, Miller published over three dozen science fiction short stories, winning a Hugo Award in 1955 for the story "The Darfsteller." Late in the 1950s, Miller assembled a novel from three closely related novellas he had published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1955, 1956 and 1957. His novel, entitled A Canticle for Leibowitz, was published in 1959.
A Canticle for Leibowitz is a post-apocalyptic (post-holocaust) novel revolving around the canonisation of Saint Leibowitz and is considered a masterpiece of the genre. It won the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel. The novel is also a powerful meditation on the cycles of world history and Roman Catholicism as a force of stability during history's dark times.
After the success of A Canticle For Leibowitz, Miller never published another new novel or story in his lifetime, although several compilations of Miller's earlier stories were issued in the 1960s and 70s. As well, a radio adaptation of A Canticle for Leibowitz was produced by WHA Radio and NPR in 1981 and is available on CD.
In Miller's later years, he became a recluse, avoiding contact with nearly everyone, including family members. According to science fiction writer Terry Bisson, Miller struggled with depression during his later years, but had managed to write a 600-page manuscript for the sequel to Canticle before taking his own life with a gun in January 1996.[1] The sequel, titled Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, was completed by Bisson and published in 1997. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
This is an eloquent, an angry and a sad book...But Mr. Miller is so capable a novelist that he has never allowed his message to overwhelm the terrific story he has to tell. For imaginative power, for savage irony, for originality of conception, A Canticle for Leibowitz is altogether exceptional.
Orville Prescott - New York Times (2/22/1960)
In this ingenious fantasy, Walter M. Miller Jr. diagrams mankind's future in terms of its past.... Mr. Miller is a fine story teller at his best—which is in the opening section of the novel, depicting the medieval reprise. But when his machine shifts gears in neo-Renaissance, it stalls.... A graver misemeanor is the author's heavy-handed approach to allegory: this far too explicit moralizing dulls the luster of his imaginative format.
Martin Levin - New York Times (3/27/1960)
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
Extraordinary.... Chillingly effective.
Time
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
Amazon
An exciting and imaginative story.... Unconditionally recommended.
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a conversation started for A Canticle for Leibowitz:
1. Who was Leibowitz and why was he made a saint?
2. Who is the mysterious old man who appears in all three sections of Canticle? In what way does his story mirror the legend of the Wandering Jew? Why is he chosen to reappear; in other words, what is the old man's role in this novel?
3. In what ways does this book parallel the real history of the "dark ages," the Renaissance era, and the development of modern technology? How closely do Miller's fiction and real history track? Do you need knowledge of history to appreciate his book?
4. Spend some time discussing one of the central themes in Canticle—the clash between religious faith and scientific rationalism? How does that conflict play out in this work? What is Miller's stance on the issue? In what way is that theme still alive today?
5. What does the phrase "Lucifer is fallen" signifiy in this novel?
6. Discuss this passage: "The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they seemed to become with it and with themselves as well." Is that observation true in real life?
7. Philosopher George Santayana wrote in 1905, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Miller probes that issue in Canticle. What conclusion does he reach? Is it inevitable that we will repeat our mistakes, or can we learn from the past? What are your views?
8. As a pilot during World War II, Miller bombed the Benedictine Monastery at Monte Cassino. How might that fact color both his writing of this work...and your reading of it?
9. In the final section of the book, Miller examines the role of faith in the face of suffering and destruction. He wrestles specifically with euthanasia and suicide. What are the opposing views that emerge from this discussion?
10. Given the fact that Miller himself committed suicide years later, how does this affect your reading?
11. Did you enjoy the religious and philosophical musings of Canticle...or did you find them distracting?
12. This book is 40+ years old. What relevance does it hold for today? How did you come away from this book—feeling hopeless...or hopeful?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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