A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter A. Miller
I read this book on SubD's recommendation, and chose it, actually, because I had seen it ages ago, been fascinated by the surreal cover, and resolved to read it someday, but never got around to it.
The book not written as a conventional narrative following one group of characters over a continuous timeframe, but Anyway, the premise of this book is that the major powers on the earth have destroyed themselves with nuclear weapons, and in response, society turned against science and celebrated ignorance, leading to regression of society to a sort of "Dark Ages." Much knowledge was lost, and centuries later in the bleak post-apocalyptic landscape of America, there is a monastery dedicated to the Blessed Leibowitz, a former scientist who founded a Catholic order which attempts to gather and protect the ancient knowledge. In the first portion, a young monk discovers some of Leibowitz's papers, and becomes tangentially involved in the politics surrounding the campaign for Leibowitz's sainthood. In the second part, an empire is beginning to form in America, and a scholarly relative of the king comes to the monastery in search of the documents stored there; we then see a critical discussion of the ethical duties of scientists to prevent science from being used for destructive ends. In the final part, the empire has evolved into a modern civilization, but the cycle seems to be repeating itself with the world now once again on the verge of nuclear warfare, and some of the monks take to the stars, perhaps to begin the cycle over again. A nuclear blast hits the city near the monastery, and a monk debates with a doctor over euthanasia.
What I was most impressed by this work was how it manages to make the cliche of the post-apocalypse seem fresh and forboding; the natural descriptions and details of the layers of centuries of life within the monastery, the mental states of each of the characters, work like episodes within a historical novel. Perhaps this was one of the books that put the post-apocalyptic nuclear story on the map in science fiction? With the gaps in time between each of the segments, the reader must instead imagine the vast unseen history going on far away from the monastery, the physical place which links all of this.
The tripartite structure, far from seeming hap-hazard or disconnected, serves to underscore the author's exploration of cyclic time, and the tendency of rulers towards inhumane and insane mutual self-destruction. Although, at some points I wondered why there was such an emphasis on the cyclic nature of history, when the actual Christian idea of the actual apocalypse is not something that is supposed occur again and again. (In other words, it's the end of history, not the restarting of history, as far as I can see). In some ways, the idea seems more closely associated with Hinduism or Buddhism.
Despite the presence of the preternatural (the Wandering Jew? The possible coming of a Messiah at the end?), religion is dealt with in a psychological and lived, rather than mystic manner. Just as the monastery is continuously the main setting of the novel, while the outside world changes, the church remains, trying to preserve the knowledge of civilization, but also remaining apart from it. While many science fiction and fantasy stories stress how religion functions as a power in society enmeshed with the state, I find that many books dealing with religion from the inside, or which are attempting to argue for the value of religion, emphasize how religion is separate from, and often opposed to the state, even when the religion is an established institution within society. The church is able to oppose Caesar morally, if not temporally, whereas science does not.
The book not written as a conventional narrative following one group of characters over a continuous timeframe, but Anyway, the premise of this book is that the major powers on the earth have destroyed themselves with nuclear weapons, and in response, society turned against science and celebrated ignorance, leading to regression of society to a sort of "Dark Ages." Much knowledge was lost, and centuries later in the bleak post-apocalyptic landscape of America, there is a monastery dedicated to the Blessed Leibowitz, a former scientist who founded a Catholic order which attempts to gather and protect the ancient knowledge. In the first portion, a young monk discovers some of Leibowitz's papers, and becomes tangentially involved in the politics surrounding the campaign for Leibowitz's sainthood. In the second part, an empire is beginning to form in America, and a scholarly relative of the king comes to the monastery in search of the documents stored there; we then see a critical discussion of the ethical duties of scientists to prevent science from being used for destructive ends. In the final part, the empire has evolved into a modern civilization, but the cycle seems to be repeating itself with the world now once again on the verge of nuclear warfare, and some of the monks take to the stars, perhaps to begin the cycle over again. A nuclear blast hits the city near the monastery, and a monk debates with a doctor over euthanasia.
What I was most impressed by this work was how it manages to make the cliche of the post-apocalypse seem fresh and forboding; the natural descriptions and details of the layers of centuries of life within the monastery, the mental states of each of the characters, work like episodes within a historical novel. Perhaps this was one of the books that put the post-apocalyptic nuclear story on the map in science fiction? With the gaps in time between each of the segments, the reader must instead imagine the vast unseen history going on far away from the monastery, the physical place which links all of this.
The tripartite structure, far from seeming hap-hazard or disconnected, serves to underscore the author's exploration of cyclic time, and the tendency of rulers towards inhumane and insane mutual self-destruction. Although, at some points I wondered why there was such an emphasis on the cyclic nature of history, when the actual Christian idea of the actual apocalypse is not something that is supposed occur again and again. (In other words, it's the end of history, not the restarting of history, as far as I can see). In some ways, the idea seems more closely associated with Hinduism or Buddhism.
Despite the presence of the preternatural (the Wandering Jew? The possible coming of a Messiah at the end?), religion is dealt with in a psychological and lived, rather than mystic manner. Just as the monastery is continuously the main setting of the novel, while the outside world changes, the church remains, trying to preserve the knowledge of civilization, but also remaining apart from it. While many science fiction and fantasy stories stress how religion functions as a power in society enmeshed with the state, I find that many books dealing with religion from the inside, or which are attempting to argue for the value of religion, emphasize how religion is separate from, and often opposed to the state, even when the religion is an established institution within society. The church is able to oppose Caesar morally, if not temporally, whereas science does not.