A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
A monk of the Order of Saint Leibowitz has miraculously discovered holy relics from the life of the great saint himself in the depths of the Utah desert, long after the Flame Deluge has wiped the earth clean. These include the blessed blueprint, the sacred shopping list, and the hallowed shrine of the Fallout Shelter.
These artifacts might hold the answers to humanity’s redemption in a frightening period of darkness and rot. But as the enigma at the centre of this ground-breaking book is revealed, it is the search for meaning, truth, and love that offers hope for humanity’s rebirth from the ashes.
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
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Before the start of this book, a nuclear war decimates civilization and is followed by a period known as the “Simplification,” in which the Enlightenment, science, and culture are resisted and the majority of people lose their literacy. The book also describes how society recovered from the catastrophe and how, after decades of rebuilding, a small portion of the pre-deluge civilization was saved. It raises a variety of issues relating to rebirth, including whether history is characterized by a never-ending cycle of the dark, middle, and early modern eras. A lot of what we do when analyzing existential risks involves studying scenarios of civilisational collapse when mankind is relegated to roving bands or tiny tribes rather than dying out totally.
We can attempt to predict whether mankind would recover in various scenarios, as well as how quickly. Some questions are hard to answer: should we be okay if mankind recovers from its collapse and returns to its prior level of cultural and technological development? By arguing that a civilisational collapse doesn’t really matter in the big picture as long as it is followed by a renaissance, A Canticle for Leibowitz encourages the reader to adopt this long-term perspective. Over countless millions of years, that minor “blip” won’t matter at all.
Over millennia, human civilizations rise and fallen like reincarnation-impersonating radioactive births and deaths. The Catholic Church has managed to sustain faith in God, which is what keeps people going today. The basis for A Canticle for Leibowitz is this. The story, which was first published in 1959, begins in the not-too-distant future and spans roughly eighteen hundred years. The first act takes place in a roughly medieval-level setting in the Utah desert. Leibowitz Abbey monk Brother Francis is fasting in seclusion during Lent on a nearby rocky crag. There are enough post-apocalyptic science fiction cliches there for the reader to get a sense of the setting and period.
The first act takes place in a roughly medieval-level setting in the Utah desert. Leibowitz Abbey monk Brother Francis is fasting in seclusion during Lent on a nearby rocky crag. When Brother Francis unearths an ancient fallout shelter containing relics pertinent to the life of his abbey’s potential patron saint, Leibowitz, the book’s central plot device is set in motion. I. E. Leibowitz appears to have been an electrical engineer who switched from science to Catholicism. The book’s main issue is the conflict between science and religion. Brother Francis spends most of the first act coming to terms with the artifacts he has discovered and how they affect his vocation, his relationships with his abbot and the Vatican, as well as his potential for sainthood.
The second act takes place in 3174 CE, a few centuries later and still near the Leibowitz Abbey in Utah. Although technology has not made much progress, the monastery has emerged as the protector of ancient knowledge because of its vast underground library. Its assets are referred to as “the Memorabilia,” particularly those pertaining to Leibowitz. Thon Taddeo, a visiting scholar, is at the centre of the second act’s plot. As part of his research for New Rome, he wants to reread the Memorabilia. He can work in the library’s gloomy basement thanks to an arc lamp that Brother Kornhoer developed and that is powered by numerous monks turning a wheel. As long as the monks who are fueling it can endure, the light is effective…
