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A Canticle for Leibowitz (St. Leibowitz, #1)

Walter M. Miller Jr.,

Mary Doria Russell (Introduction)

Start date: September 1, 2015

Finish date: September 30, 2015

Why we're reading this: It won the poll: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...…more
[close] It won the poll: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

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Sep 10, 2008 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it

Shelves: own, league-extraordinary-dorks, read2012, post-apocalypse-and-dystopia

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Before reviewing this book, I read a little bit about the back story as well as listening to the SFBRP episode that covers it. These helped a lot. I'd had this on my post-apocalyptic reading list for quite some time, but had the wrong impressions of the book.

1. I thought it was funny.
Well, there are a few little chuckly bits at the beginning, as you see the monks try to make sense of our culture, only found in fragments. Grocery lists take on great meaning, as do diagrams of circuitry. But the e Before reviewing this book, I read a little bit about the back story as well as listening to the SFBRP episode that covers it. These helped a lot. I'd had this on my post-apocalyptic reading list for quite some time, but had the wrong impressions of the book.

1. I thought it was funny.
Well, there are a few little chuckly bits at the beginning, as you see the monks try to make sense of our culture, only found in fragments. Grocery lists take on great meaning, as do diagrams of circuitry. But the end is dark, so dark, and the humor turns black. I was expecting more bagel humor! That's how it has always been sold to me in the past.

2. I thought it centered around the quest of some guy named Leibowitz.
Haha, not so much. Leibowitz is revered as the story begins, but has been long gone. Funny that a bunch of Christian monks are asking a guy named Leibowitz to intercede for them? Absolutely.

In fact, it doesn't center around one guy at all. This "novel" is really three short stories that tie together around the central mythology of Leibowitz and what used to be our world. The first story is just a few centuries after mass destruction by nuclear war. The second is a few more centuries, where a ruler has amassed forces, and some of the science is being recreated. The third is far, far into the future, where history is just about to repeat itself. With one creepy twist. Someone other than me will have to determine if this passes the Bechdel test (referring to the tomato woman).

From Walter M. Miller Jr.'s perspective, I can see how sending the message that history is going to repeat, and that we needed to TAKE HEED, was an important thing to do. I think he does this effectively. I keep reminding myself that this book comes over 20 years before The Stand, and 30 before Swan Song. Both of these novels are bleak and scary, but A Canticle for Leibowitz may be even scarier. A society that can't learn from its mistakes, and can't provide for its citizens anything more than regulated suicide? Maybe we deserve to die. ...more

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