Its a little chinsey, but I really liked it so I'm giving it a 4.5 ( )

Crazy complex, a meditation on humanity and civilization. Divided into three parts, the first after what seems to have been a nuclear war, the second partway into a time of political consolidation and the rise of nation-states, but also the rebirth of scholarship, and the third at a toe-to-toe arms face-off. There are threads that connect the three very disparate sections; the canticle for Leibowitz standing in for the concept of knowledge, the monastery devoted to knowledge preservation, a wild-haired wanderer, the themes of humanity. Each section revolves partly around life at the monastery and a particular issue of their time. Being largely unfamiliar with the structure of the Catholic church, I felt a little hampered at times as some of the concepts Miller plays with seem to do with Church structure, and faith, and certainly a number of references seem to be in Latin. It didn't hamper reading, by any means, but I can't help wonder if it affected how I read Miller's larger messages, especially as the last third seems to deal with elemental questions of conceptual sin. The characters are used to illustrate the larger issues, but many are still well crafted and interesting. Brother Francis drew me into the book in the first section. There was a well rounded and interesting cast in the second, but the third seemed to be mere props for the message. A thoughtful and classic book.

"Both he and they knew that he had only been reading the palm of a plan, had been describing a hope and not a certainty." ( )

So, this is basically three stories linked together over a long period of time. For me, the first story was 4 stars, the second story was -5 stars, and the third and last story was 3 stars. So, overall, I would rate that book as 2 stars, or "just OK", although the middle of the book was so bad and boring I almost quit the entire thing.

This is pretty typical of 1960's science fiction, focused on big ideas with basically no women to speak of and reflects a lot of the apprehensions and fears at the time of nuclear/cold war. I know this is considered a classic, and I can certainly see why, but it just didn't do it for me. I much prefer older science fiction by Heinlein or Clark or Asimov, and they deal with big questions but still have a story and characters that are half interesting. ( )

I guess this is a classic of sci fi literature, written in the late 1950s and focused on the dangers of nuclear Armageddon. It starts in the near future, after a nuclear war has destroyed society and a subsequent worldwide purge of scientists and statesman has occurred, as they are to blame for the destruction.

A monastery is set up in the desert American west, where Christian monks have rescued great works of science and literature, named after Liebowitz, a key founder and martyr who is eventually granted sainthood by the Church. We then follow the monks at intervals of many hundreds of years, as society rebuilds itself slowly and attempts to rediscover the science it has lost.

The book is profoundly cynical about human nature, seeing nuclear destruction as inevitable and likely to repeat. The writing is pretty good, but the focus on Christian imagery got tiring for me- there's lots of Latin in there! (This was written before Vatican II). The last section is kind of tedious, with a lengthy tangent into the ethics of euthanasia that I found unnecessary. Not my favorite sci fi classic. ( )

I was so mad when I finished the first part I just couldn't enjoy the rest. ( )

I was so mad when I finished the first part I just couldn't enjoy the rest. ( )

I was so mad when I finished the first part I just couldn't enjoy the rest. ( )

I was so mad when I finished the first part I just couldn't enjoy the rest. ( )

Enjoyed this in my teens, but not so much now. ( )

Having read his excellent short story collection, I had high hopes for his seminal post-apocalyptic novel. Unfortunately, this has been inconsistently enjoyable and is another example of trying to gel too many things - in this case philosophy, christian mythology, satire and post-apocalyptic dystopia - into one book and not landing with any of them except the setting.

The writing is a dull, meandering mess of often garbled passages (sometimes deliberately in a poor contribution to his attempt to satirise) that rarely contribute to progressing any sense of story or idealism. Sometimes it's clear what Miller is trying to convey with his thoughts and ideas, but usually it ends up a mess.

The characters are fun characactures and Brother Francis' story is the stand out and has the feel of classic parable, with moments of light comedy. But after the tale moves forward in time, there's not much to enjoy. The second act plods along laboriously, with at least some fun connections to what came before and interesting thoughts about the cyclical nature of society, history and technology. A few parallels to history did at least add small value in being thought provoking, but weren't enough to sustain a story over the course of an entire novel. I had hoped it was just the middle Act which bogged things down, but it actually proceeded to get worse and ever more pointless in the final third.

A nice idea which failed to satisfactorly develop and succeeded only in the author showing off his latin and ability to meaninglessly philosophise, with only some interesting thoughts on cyclical history to save it. ( )

Having just come from back from a trip from Cyprus which saw me admiring old and venerable iconostasis, listen to the eerie chants of mass goers behind closed church doors and getting glimpses of the devout kissing pictures of saints, a reread of A Canticle Of Leibowitz was just was the doctor ordered, so to speak.
This book gives me the goosebumps still and because of my recent experiences in and around Byzantine churches, the (re)reading experience was amplified.
The setting is post-deluge - civilization had been utterly destroyed in a nuclear holocaust- and it is a sort of Christian order, the order of the St. Leibowitz that becomes the caretaker and perhaps more importantly the interpreter of past knowledge. The parallels between the Christian church after the destruction of the Roman Empire are striking, by the way.
“From the monster Fallout - deliver us.”
“From the spirit of fornication - deliver us.”
“From the Strontium, the Casium, the Cobalt- deliver us
It all kicks into gear when brother Francis finds among other items, a shopping list and a drawing of a circuit plan in an old fallout shelter which become objects of religious veneration.
It is then when taken out of context, we realize how easily the banal, the trivial is recognized as the ultimately profound, the lifeless becomes alive and ignorance becomes king. We, through the endless arrogance of contemporary societies are not aware that each and everyone of us, just as brother Francis and the whole church of St. Leibowitz, are forever dwelling inside universal concentric circles of dramatic irony. In that sense, ignorance permeates all there is and can’t be abdicated.
Walter Miller’s tale is a forever masterpiece, a classic of speculative fiction. Ah, what arrogance to suppose, to claim that anything can be forever-lasting .
Yet, Miller’s work ticks all the boxes. It is masterly eloquent, at times lusciously, then disturbingly ironic.
“What did the world weigh? It weighs but is not weighed. Sometimes it’s scales are crooked. It weighs life and labor in the balance against silver and gold. That will never balance. But fast and ruthless it keeps on that way. It spills a lot of life that way and sometimes a little gold. And blindfolded a king comes riding across the desert with a set of crooked scales, a pair of loaded dice and upon the flag is emblazoned vexileragis.”
The plot moves on like a steam engine, undisturbed and not caring for a reader’s preference. Driven by the stark reality of circumstance, it takes no prisoners. Simply wonderfully profound. Ah, I’m getting carried away.
A spiritu fornicationis, Domine, libera nos (in religious context fornication is often used as idolatry) Deliver me from the sin of idolatry.
Deo gratias. ( )

She leaned close to whisper behind her hand. “I need be giving shriv’ness to Him, as well.”
The priest recoiled slightly. “To whom? I don’t understand.”
“Shriv’ness-to Him who made me as I am,” she whimpered. But then a slow smile spread her mouth. “I-I never forgave Him for it.”
“Forgive God? How can you-? He is just. He is Justice, He is Love. How can you say-?”
Her eyes pleaded with him. “Mayn’t an old tumater woman forgive Him just a little for His Justice? Afor I be asking His shriv’ness on me?”

A book about hope, death, suffering, endings, nostalgia, heritage, preservation, change, what actually matters, whether a small group of people has the power to change the world, tradition, and other stuff that I'm bad at articulating. Pretty depressing too. It gives an amazing sense of time passing, of how things change, how people forget and remember. The society presented feels real.

I came away with a feeling of just how important nuclear disarmament is, how important peace is, how disgusting justifications for war are. I feel like there's more to say but it's hard to articulate, there's a lot to think about that feels like it needs an essay to put into words.

The ending is a little weird and it's really depressing sometimes and the Latin can be a bit confusing with no translation (BUT whenever it's key to the story it's translated) but otherwise it's great.

Also, I will say that although they get only minimal mention in the book: I have strong sympathy for the "Simpletons" (very minor early spoiler) who burned the books. ( )

This is my book. I hardly ever read books twice, but I've read this at least four times. I'm not sure I can write anything about it that would be useful for another person. I find it utterly wrenching, sorrowful, human. ( )

This is a book that I would have absolutely loved as a high school student. I wished I were a high school student while I was reading it. Digesting it in huge chunks at a time. Hanging out in the study hall area before school, debating and quoting and dissecting with four or five other nerds who were reading it simultaneously. (That's how I've read most of the science fiction that I've really loved in my life. It's the best way to do it.)

The problem with classic science fiction is that science fiction is a genre that eats it own and constantly regenerates ideas. So was Neal Stephenson's [b:Anathem|2845024|Anathem|Neal Stephenson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1224107150s/2845024.jpg|6163095] a complete homage? Yes, in many important ways. And certainly, it was influenced by Canticle, which proceeded it by 30 years. But I read Anathem first, so Canticle comes off looking the derivative one. I feel bad, because I know it's historically inaccurate, but I'm just kind of over post-apocalyptic-humanity-is-doomed-to-repeat-its-own-mistakes-and-perpetually-destroy-itself.

There were a few tropes I loved - most notably the dilemma of is a species technologically generated by humans to replicate humans less than human? However, that was really only considered for a sentence or two. ( )

I was wrenchingly moved by this book, which I read in my youth and re-read when the sequel was published. ( )

The dystopian novel is different from most of the more contemporary ones that I have read. While it is clearly set in a post-apocalyptic world, it deals more with whether man can learn from past mistakes or if human nature & time combine to make that impossible to some extent. Religion (specifically a form of Catholicism) plays a role but actually that was less than I had expected based upon the title and cover art.

My favorite section was the beginning during the new "Dark Ages" but that was probably due in part to the fact that in this section, there's the most hope that the future will be better, or at least different, from the past. Also, I found the finding and puzzling over 'artifacts' fun.

There were some aspects of the story I found perplexing and am still mulling over, such as the recurring old man... ( )

This is the first Hugo Winner from the 1950s that I've read that doesn't clearly read like a sci fi book from the 1950s. The dialog, plot, everything still holds up extremely well today. The themes of innocence, cyclical nature of history, man's hubris, and more all are still as relevant today as when Miller wrote them nearly 70 years ago. Thoroughly enjoyed this one more than I thought I would. I'm finding that I enjoy science fiction centered around organized religion a lot more than I would have expected. ( )

This was a powerful, yet hard story. Ratings Cannot do justice. This book makes you think & feel, though perhaps not what You want to think or feel. It's an important book. ( )

I had heard that this book was utterly depressing and that's why I wanted to read it. In fact, it's not that depressing at all.
The story is basically about the survival of knowledge and the benefits and dangers that entails, postulating a cyclical view of history in which we attain knowledge we are not capable of bearing and which causes our destruction, only to start all over again due to the (misguided, maybe?) attempts to protect that knowledge by a handful of priests.
After reading this, I get where a lot of similar stories have come from over the years (the first thing that comes to mind is the Babylon 5 epilogue episode where they show us snippets of the far future and it turns out the Earth has been blown back to the Dark Ages and only the priests helped the knowledge survive, until a long time later they reclaim their place in the stars). Its religious allegories are pretty clear: the apple of knowledge and all of that imagery.
But what surprised me was that it wasn't entirely depressing. Maybe that would have been true at the time it was written and some people still read it that way. Some people die in the book, and that's ok. But to me, it's a story about hope, about how no matter how much we screw up, we'll eventually rise again and aim to the stars, even if it's a terrible journey there.
That's how I read it, at least. I prefer that reading over the sense that we're just doomed to repeat our mistakes. Maybe we are. But at some point, culture and technology (which are so intertwined most people don't realize the cognitive rearranging the technology performs on us) will evolve so our consciousness goes beyond the self-destructive passions. Maybe then we'll reach for the stars. ( )

The writing was a little off at times, but the narrative was inventive and carried interesting themes with it ( )

One of my favorite sci-fi books. An apocalyptic story about a monk. I've read it a couple of times. ( )

Thought provoking. Bleak. Writing reminded me of the Discworld books for some reason, particularly in the first third. Needs to be chewed on a bit. Maybe warrants a re-read. ( )

“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?” – Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

This book is a trio of interrelated episodes, set hundreds of years apart. All are set in the Leibowitz Abbey, a monastery in the southwestern desert of what was formerly America. The first episode opens in the 26th century, 600 years after the Flame Deluge has wiped out most of civilization. The remaining people are largely illiterate. Some are deformed due to radiation fallout. The monks of the abbey, working by candlelight, are dedicated to preserving the written Memorabilia of the pre-apocalyptic society, which Leibowitz, a 20th century scientist, tried to preserve during the Flame Deluge. The book closes in the 38th century.

The narrative is filled with irony. For example, the monks carefully preserve documents that the reader will recognize as a shopping list, common circuit diagram, and portions of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. They cannot tell the trivial from the profound, so they preserve everything. The author explores the relationships among religion, scientific knowledge, and humankind’s violent inclinations. It is rich in symbolism, subject to a variety of interpretations, and can be read on many levels. There are theological, historical, literary, scientific, political, and ethical overtones, which may be analyzed or ignored depending on the reader’s inclinations.

Due to the subject matter, it will not come as a surprise that this book is not cheery, but the dark humor, irony, and tiny rays of hope help soften it. There are only a few women and children depicted, but when they appear, their impact is significant. The reader may want to keep a Latin translation tool handy. Published in 1959, it is obviously influenced by the Cold War era, but holds up remarkably well. It is thought-provoking, well written, and deserving of its status as a classic of apocalyptic science fiction. ( )

A curious novel. It starts out as a sort of ur-text of those [b:Riddley Walker|941149|Riddley Walker|Russell Hoban|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1179644924l/941149._SY75_.jpg|762606]-type novels where nuclear war has eradicated civilization, and space-age artifacts are worshipped as relics by the survivors. By the end, it has become a meditation on human history, the role of religion, and the absurdity of politics.

The novel is composed of three sections, likely written independently as three novellas, and it is only with the third that the central theme of the novel becomes apparent: human history is cyclical, and human civilization is doomed to destroy itself as a result of human failings (lust for power, jingoism, etc). The changes wrought by human struggle may at first appear to redeem themselves, as society consolidates itself, living conditions improve, and science or engineering is advanced. Ultimately, however, humans go to far, and destroy their own civilization over what is, from the centuries-long or millenia-long view, a petty squabble.

The first section is the most simplistic: a monk makes a discovery which may impede the canonization of the Beatus who founded his order, and Church Politics ensue. In the second section, secular researchers are making technological advances based on the records of the order, and national politics threatens to disrupt this slow progress; shades of Manifest Destiny and Henry VIII abound. In the final section, nukes have been rediscovered and are deployed in space, and the monastery is scrambling to protect its relics in the face of another nuclear war. So we have, for those who are keeping track, the Dark Ages, the Enlightenment, and the Space Age or Cold War era.

In parallel with the development of a historical cycle is the changing role of the Church, exemplified in this case by the monastic order of Leibowitz. Throughout, the primary mission of the order is to preserve artifacts from the before-time. In the first section, the monastery is working towards the canonization of the Beatus Leibowitz, and this goal directs most of its activity. In the second section, the monastery is taking a role in the dissemination of knowledge, often in spite of norms of tradition or sanctity. In the final section, the monastery is seeking to save society from its folly, to teach people that the ultimate arbiter of human conflicts must not be another human: guidance from a higher power must be accepted, regardless of whether that higher power exists or is manifest. This is a rather simplistic treatment of religion in general and the Church in particular, and that may rile up readers who feel passionately about the subject one way or another, but it does allow the author to ask some interesting questions, not all of which have the easy, pat answers normally delivered by spiritual authorities.

One weak point of the novel is the recurring character of the Wandering Jew. It is difficult to tell whether the author intended this as comic relief: the appearances generally have the feel of failed jokes. The inclusion also puts a thumb on the scale of righteousness: instead of leaving the reader to decide whether the monks are preserving a different form of human spirit from the destructive one, or acting under divine guidance, the author comes down firmly on the side of the latter. Which is unfortunate, as the former is much more interesting ground for (can we use this term without snickering yet?) speculative fiction. ( )

Truth is, I never got over Francis's death in the first part of this book. His opening section was fantastic. The second part was OK. The ending section just pissed me off. I think it's safe to say I have some issues with the church. Any church. Which church have you got? ( )