A Review of "A Canticle For Leibowitz" - A Novel by Walter Miller

Basics of the Plot 

To give some context to a potential reader, A Canticle For Leibowitz is made up of three novellas which are set within the same world but at different points in history. Each novella passes further into the future by a degree of many centuries. The setting is in the United States South-West after an apocalyptic destruction of humanity through nuclear war. There were some survivors of the "fire-deluge" but they became vehemently anti-education and anti-science, and return to a life similar to that of ancient tribal paganism. As one might suspect, the former educated class is indeed killed, and the accrued knowledge of humanity's past is all but lost. The Catholic Church, though, is one institution that survived, and the main setting of the story is thus centered around a monastery called the Abbey of Blessed Leibowitz. The charism of these monks was given by their founder, Leibowitz, who was a man that survived the fire-deluge, sought to preserve the knowledge of the past, and was martyred for it. And so the monks too seek to preserve civilization's past through these new centuries of intellectual darkness by collecting and copying whatever works of the past they can get their hands on. They live in a fortified abbey and are self-sufficient while living a very intense and ascetical life. 

The first novella, called Fiat Homo, centers around a young novice named Brother Francis approximately 500 years after the Fire-Deluge. After a strange encounter with a man in the desert during his Lenten retreat he is led to an old nuclear fallout shelter where he finds some relics that seemed to have belonged to the Blessed Leibowitz himself. Much of the "memorabilia" (anything recovered from the past) is not able to be understood by the monks, educated as they are, and so are simply copied and passed on with the hope that one day they may be understood. Brother Francis' "apparition" causes a much-to-do among the monks at the abbey. 

The second novella, called Fiat Lux, takes place something like 500 years after the first novella in which there is political intrigue over a ruler named Hannigan the Second who is trying to unify the disparate tribes around America under himself. One of Hannigan's court members and relations is Thon Taddeo, a brilliant polymath and scientist. Thon Taddeo is allowed to visit the memorabilia of the monks to study its contents just as one of the monks has finally discovered electricity and the lightbulb. Thon Taddeo is a secular man, though respectful enough of the faith of the monks, while challenging it at the same time. 

The third novella, called Fiat Voluntas Tua, takes place something like 1000 years after the second novella. Civilization has fully returned to its former state, and there is even space travel, with humans inhabiting space. The drama, though, surrounds the use of a tactical nuclear bomb in a political disagreement, and the fallout from that decision. The monks have prepared a special back-up plan called Quod Peregrinator in which they will take the memorabilia into space if humanity seems as though it is going to destroy itself again. There is also drama surrounding the secular doctors use of euthanasia for radiation sick patients. 

What makes this book such a beloved read for me has to be the uniqueness of the story. It's at once apocalyptic, and yet at the same time reminiscent of the past as well. It is something akin to reliving the fall of Rome and birth the Middle Ages in which the Catholic Church saves the civilized world yet again. Likewise, as a Catholic I was much enchanted by Miller's use of Latin in the text, but also of the depth and extremely accurate knowledge he showed of Catholicism in general and the practicalities of religious life in particular. He makes the life of the monks seem extremely harsh and ascetical but yet also appealing because of their deep faith and devotion to Christ. 

What is Technology to Man?

Philosophically, the book made me reflect on the charism of the monks as "book-leggers" and "book-memorizers" trying to preserve the education and civilization of the past from being destroyed. The modern day Catholic, and many who share the same sentiments today, surely can feel a connection to this if they have anything to do with education formally, or even in just a desire to adequately educate their children. We are trying to recover and protect both our Greco-Roman Classical heritage and our Judeo-Christian faith heritage from the desecration of the modern world. In so many words, we are trying to defend Athens and Jerusalem from being overrun by the modern barbarian. 

While this is most certainly a noble task when it comes to the humanities, as the humanities are trying to cultivate the true virtue and goodness in man that separates him from the beasts, it does bring up the question regarding the development of science and technology and man's grasp over the physical world. Is the saving and then the continual development of technology a noble task? I think this book calls us to ask that question. Physical prosperity may seem like an unconditional good to us who live in air conditioned homes with internet and electricity, but at the same time I do believe there is a rising sentiment against the next phase of technological development, such as with social media, all immersive virtual reality, and the rapid growth of AI. 

Traditionally the work to reduce human suffering through invention and technology has been a noble one in general, though those who were at the cusp of these breakthroughs and invented them were often torn by the problem that exists with all tools ... in that tools are a-moral, and can be wielded by both the good and the bad; whether that was Alfred Nobel inventing hydroglycerin or Oppenheimer with the nuclear bomb, at the same time they were releasing the potential for good into the world they were also releasing grave evil into the world as well. We know this all too well today with the internet. There are so many good things that come from the internet ... and so many evil ones as well. The monks in Canticle saved the collective knowledge of humanity, only to have it brought back to its full flourishing again, to then destroy itself once more. Is what they did truly as moral and noble as they thought it was? 

And so the question becomes, what is technology to man? What risks should we take in this continual pursuit of power over the physical world? Should we gamble the possibility of evil for the possibility of good? These are exceedingly difficult questions to answer, and in many ways I do not envy those brilliant inventors who have to rest their head at night carrying both the weight of the good and the bad that their work allowed. 

The only answer to this question I can think of is to look to God as the model of all creators in the act of creation itself. What risks does God take in creating the cosmos and in creating man? Certainly God's work did not turn out perfectly, or anything close to perfect, though all was created good in the beginning by him. And some even, with an understandable anger, lash out at God, and at being itself, as being evil because of the suffering they endure in their lives. And yet God still creates knowing that many may reject him, that all people will undergo suffering, and that creation is marred by human sin. 

God takes that risk it seems ... why? I think we must conclude it can only be because good will win in the end, that love is stronger than evil, that the good gained will be worth the evil suffered for its sake.