About the book: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1959)

There have been many books written theorizing what life on earth might look like after a nuclear apocalypse. But none intertwine the fears of a post atomic age America with a Catholic eschatology like A Canticle for Leibowitz, written by Walter M. Miller Jr., originally published in 1959. 

Miller, a tailgunner during World War II, was involved in the bombing of Monte Cassino Abbey in Italy. It was thought the Benedictine Abby was hiding German and Italian troops, but was, in fact, only sheltering monks and civilians. This experience haunted Miller, who sets his book in an abbey in Utah in the 26th century. It opens 600 years after the world had been reduced to rubble by nuclear war, setting civilization back into a new dark age. Bands of criminals, making the not unreasonable judgment that education and technology had been largely responsible for the war, had destroyed most books and methods of education, returning America to a way of life reminiscent of the post-fall of the Roman Empire. These crusaders are referred to as the “simpletons.” (If you like this style of humor, this book is probably for you.) 

The first book of the trilogy, Fiat Homo, focuses on Brother Francis, a novice monk in the Albertian order of Leibowitz. St. Leibowitz is gradually revealed as a World War II engineer who founded the monastery. Due to the “simplification,” brought on by the “simpletons,” not much is known about him, but what the monks have of him (shopping lists and electronics blueprints, for example) are preserved as holy manuscripts, known as the “memorabilia,” which Brother Francis sets about illuminating in the style of a medieval monk. The few artifacts they have of him are completely undecipherable, since the ability to understand English and scientific documentation have both been completely lost due to the simplification. The relics they have of him are kept safe while being illuminated by Brother Francis, and are eventually presented to the Pope in “New Rome” as proof of Leibowitz’s sanctity.  

The following two books, Fiat Lux, and Fiat Voluntas Tua, each skip forward approximately 600 years, as mankind gradually rediscovers scientific knowledge and rebuilds civilization. However, with the rediscovery of this knowledge, the relics of Saint Leibowitz are preserved, even as monk scientists within the Abbey gradually rediscover how to make light bulbs and electrical generators. The friars’ world gradually becomes more recognizable to us, and by the end of the trilogy, readers find themselves close to the age of space exploration and nuclear armament in which the author himself lived, once again under the threat of civilization-ending war, smarter, but no wiser.  

A Canticle for Leibowitz, is a product of its time, when fears of nuclear war were rampant and people were wondering about what place rapidly expanding technologies left for civilization, culture, and religion. But it still has a great deal of relevance today, as we continue to face questions of how to implement faith in a modern world that often sees religion as backward. It is extremely well written, and hilarious in places, if gallows humor and Latin puns are your style. The author presupposes a good deal of historical knowledge on the part of the reader and I did need to fall back on Google translate to make sense of the paragraphs of Latin, freely interspersed within the English text, which are integral to understanding the plot. 

A Canticle requires an active reader willing to invest the time to dissect and interpret all the author has to offer. Mingling genres historical prediction, dystopia, and religious and cultural allegory, A Canticle for Leibowitz has enduring relevance and enables one to think with greater depth about the times in which we currently live, whether we are fated to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over, and whether we really are as smart and advanced as we think we are.