A Canticle for Leibowitz

A post-apocalyptic book for the ages. Source: Here

“Listen, are we helpless? Are we doomed to do it again and again and again? Have we no choice but to play the Phoenix in an unending sequence of rise and fall? Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Carthage, Rome, the Empires of Charlemagne and the Turk: Ground to dust and plowed with salt. Spain, France, Britain, America—burned into the oblivion of the centuries. And again and again and again. Are we doomed to it, Lord, chained to the pendulum of our own mad clockwork, helpless to halt its swing? This time, it will swing us clean to oblivion.” 

This is easily the bleakest book I have read. After finishing it I just put it down and let what I'd read wash over me like a tidal wave - not something to pick up if you've had a bad day, but still a very rewarding experience.

Written by Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz was first published in 1960 and won the 1961 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. The book's narrative revolves around the Roman Catholic monastery of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz, a monastic order founded by a Jewish engineer after a nuclear apocalypse (referred to as the Flame Deluge) destroyed 20th century civilisation. As if this wasn't enough, mass book-burning soon followed in an event known as the Simplification, a reactionary response against the intellectuals thought responsible for the apocalypse. The Order found itself with a pressing objective: to preserve whatever scraps of knowledge remain of the time before the bombs fell and safeguard them for future generations.

The book itself is structured into three parts: Fiat Homo (Let There Be Man), Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light) and Fiat Voluntas Tua (Let Thy Will Be Done), each separated by periods of roughly six centuries each. Starting in the 26th century, the first section drops us in an irradiated American Southwest, with the Albertian Order sending out "book-leggers" to collect whatever knowledge (referred to as "memorabilia") all while avoiding being killed by the roving bands of marauders that patrol the desert.

We are then taken 600 years forward into the 32nd century, where humanity has risen somewhat from its post-apocalyptic slump and has developed crude nation-states, and is once again gearing to go to war. Here, the Church faces rising tensions with resurgent secular institutions over not only who should safeguard knowledge but also who gets to control and use it. The final section skips forward again 600 years, to a time when humanity has exceeded the technological peaks of centuries past and has entered a Golden Age - save for the looming threat of a second nuclear war.

Using this structure Miller emphasises the theme of cyclical history throughout the three sections, suggesting that time follows the same cycles of rise and fall no matter how many years pass, the implication being that humanity will stumble at the same pitfalls their Pre-Deluge ancestors fell to. You can see this reflected in in each section:

• Fiat Homo is a new Dark Age, a period overseeing massive regression from an earlier era of modernity and civility and instead breeding barbarism and anti-intellectualism. Characterised by a scarcity of knowledge and mass ignorance, only a select few hold access to the past's secrets, and fewer still can decipher them.
• Fiat Lux reflects the Renaissance that followed, with humanity beginning to innovate and grow increasingly complex societal structures. Knowledge is not only preserved but actively researched as people seek to understand how the world works. This in turn leads to tension between the new researchers and the static institutions of an earlier time.
• Fiat Voluntas Tua sees humanity enter modernity once again, technology having massively improved people's standards of living to a level never seen before. However, science has not only uplifted humanity but also given it the power to destroy itself.

History repeats itself once more even if the individual circumstances differ. Miller also stresses the intertwined themes of science and religion throughout and how they can combat humanity's baser instincts, but suggests that neither on its own is enough to oppose those violent aspects. Science without a conscience leads to its fruits being used to destroy while the institutions of religion, while enduring, remain too static to adapt to the changing times and so find themselves outmanoeuvred by ever-shifting forces seeking to use knowledge for their own ends. In that respect, A Canticle for Leibowitz stands in contrast to mainstream science fiction where technology is depicted as an inherently good tool that will change humanity for the better or save it from calamity - what if it doesn't solve our problems? What if it only becomes another tool to destroy ourselves with?

What I also really enjoyed about the novel was Miller's reticence in giving easy answers. His characters aren't painted in shades of black and white and their arguments are given equal time as Miller challenges us to see these issues from different angles. There's a wonderful section in Fiat Voluntas Tua concerning an abbot and a doctor fiercely debating the ethics of euthanasia in the case of a mother and her child suffering from severe radiation burns; the doctor suggesting that assisted suicide is the most humane option and the abbot retorting that this equates to "state-sponsored suicide" (two key facts come to mind: suicide is considered a sin in Catholic scriptures and doctors take oaths to "do no harm". Interpret those how you will). There are no easy answers here, and while it's tempting to say that it was easier to leave them answered I do believe that Miller wanted his audience to truly grapple with these and have them seek the answers themselves.

It's not hard to see how the author's own influences have shaped this novel. Miller was one of the American airmen who took part in the controversial bombing of the abbey at Monte Cassino during World War 2, a monastery that at one time held 40,000 manuscripts, some from famous writers of antiquity such as Tacitus, Cicero and Ovid. Published within living memory of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, A Canticle for Leibowitz is a shining example of the post-nuclear holocaust genre, a marked contrast to the view that atomic power would bring light and a new age for all.

You'd expect a work so unrelentingly bleak and fatalistic about human nature to be written in an incredibly pessimistic manner, yet it is to Miller's credit that this is not the case. The prose, in contrast to the material it covers, is light and easy to follow and carries an undertone of hope, particularly in the final few scenes of the book. Humanity may bring about its own doom time and time again, but there remains the faint hope that someone else will continue the endless quest of preserving and restoring the past.

It is a sobering read, but also one that is very rewarding. For a book written in 1960 it still holds up remarkably well, and its questions on science and technology remain pertinent today. A Canticle For Leibowitz is not a work that leaves your mind quickly, and it is a good thing it doesn't.