A Canticle for Leibowitz

A Canticle for Leibowitz, post-apocalyptic science fiction novel written by Walter M. Miller, Jr., that was published in 1960. The only novel written by Miller that was published during his lifetime, it is considered a classic of the genre. Its themes of Christian theology and the tension between religion and science have become the focus of scholarly study and literary criticism.

Origins

A Canticle for Leibowitz began as a short story of the same title that was published in 1955 in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Miller, already a noted science fiction short-story writer, was inspired to write this tale by his experience as part of the bombing crew that destroyed Monte Cassino Abbey in Italy during World War II. Miller then wrote a related story, “And the Light Is Risen”, that was published in the same magazine in 1956, and followed that with “The Last Canticle,” published in 1957, after which Miller rewrote the series into a single novel.

Summary

Spanning more than 2,000 years, this novel is divided into three parts: “Fiat Homo,” “Fiat Lux,” and “Fiat Voluntas Tua.” The first part is set in the 26th century, 600 years after a nuclear war—the Flame Deluge—had destroyed civilization. The anti-technology backlash after the war, called the Simplification, led to the destruction of all knowledge and the slaughter of everybody with any learning. Isaac Leibowitz, an engineer with the U.S. military before the nuclear war, survived the war and took refuge in a Cistercian monastery, eventually taking vows and then founding a new order, the Albertian Order of Leibowitz, dedicated to the preservation of any written forms of scientific knowledge and located in New Mexico. The monks of the order devote their lives to finding, hiding, memorizing, and copying fragments of this literature, which they do not understand.

“Fiat Homo” is focused on a novice of the order, Francis. It begins as Francis is fasting in the desert in observance of Lent. He encounters a wandering hermit, who reveals to him the location of a fallout shelter, which contains electrical blueprints and handwritten notes that may have been created by Leibowitz himself. The discovery creates a crisis in the monastery, which is concerned with the effort to achieve the canonization of its founder. Eventually, the effort is successful, and it is determined that the papers are Leibowitz’s work. Francis, whose long-delayed ordination has also at last come to pass, is sent with the relics to New Rome to attend the canonization ceremony. However, on his return he is killed by bandits and later buried by the wandering hermit.

The second part of the story starts in 3174, when a new Renaissance is under way. A scholar, Thon Tadeo, arrives at the abbey seeking to study its papers, called the Memorabilia. The abbot denies him permission to remove the artifacts to Texarkana for study but allows him to remain at the abbey to examine the Memorabilia. Much of the chapter is devoted to theological and scientific conversation between Thon Tadeo and Brother Kornhoer, who has learned how to create electrical power. Eventually, the papal nuncio to Texarkana learns that the city-state’s mayor intends to use the abbey as a military base from which to attack Denver, and this results in the mayor instituting a religious schism.

The third part, “Fiat Voluntas Tua,” is set in 3781. Humanity’s technological achievements are now beyond what they were at the time of the Flame Deluge and include space travel, nuclear technology, and nuclear weapons. The world is divided into the Asian Coalition and the Atlantic Confederacy, and these entities are preparing to go to war with each other. After a nuclear weapons test, the abbey decides to send the Memorabilia and several monks to a space colony. Nuclear weapons destroy first Texarkana and then the monastery, killing the abbot, but the mission to preserve the Memorabilia safely escapes Earth before life on the planet is destroyed.

Analysis

Miller examines several major philosophical themes in the book, including the nature of God as well as the human condition—whether humankind is doomed to a repetitive cycle of barbarianism, enlightenment, and destruction—and the relationship between science and religion. Written at a time when much of the U.S. was fearful about the threat from the Soviet Union and suspicious about communism, this novel holds a stark warning about what Miller saw as the inevitable consequences of the nation’s military build-up. In places grimly comic, in others deeply moving, with believable characters and settings, A Canticle for Leibowitz won the 1961 Hugo Award for best novel.

Miller wrote a “parallel novel,” set in 3254 and entitled Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, that was published posthumously in 1997.