A Canticle for Leibowitz

A Canticle for Leibowitz tells 3 tales (spaced 600 years apart) of a monastic order in the American Southwestern desert, founded by an engineer named Leibowitz who tried to preserve the knowledge of the human race following a nuclear holocaust. The first story is set 6 centuries into the new Dark Age, when a simple monk receives an unusual visitation...the second is set in the early renaissance, when an early scientist comes to study the old knowledge...the third is set in a newly modern age, as the world is on the verge of another nuclear war.

It was a brilliant set of stories...today it seems a little dated [e,g, the heavy use of Latin which, today, has largely vanished from the Church], but the stories are very powerful and the symbolism is thought-provoking.

Walter Miller wrote a bunch of great short stories and novellas, but this is the only novel he published during his lifetime. In fact, he never published another work after this one, except for another novel set in the same millieu which was published posthumously.

Tom Weiner's reading is good without being great...at several times, I wondered if he was the best choice for a reader, just because his style seemed a little incongruous. But he's a great reader and he does a good job with this.

I found myself thinking about Ecclesiastes 11: 1-11 many times throughout this novel.

"Is there anything of which one can say,
'Look! This is something new'?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them."

The author has created a book that seems to me to be based on the supposition: "what if?", or "maybe, like this...", and then proceeds to connect the dots in an interesting, albeit dialogue-filled and character-driven chronology. The book displays characters that have a 'true faith' in their beliefs while at the same time allows for some (perhaps justifiable) speculation, although they flirt closely with some heresy at times. I was myself amused at how important Leibowitz had become to the story, especially when his former life is mentioned in passing as it related to the story. Less focus was placed on Jesus by the monks in the story (maybe intentionally?) although they did mention Jesus as Messiah when speaking about him, which must be taken into account.

I found myself shaking hands with the author, while at the same time keeping him at arms length. It is such a unique book, one that presents ideas I may have even accidentally thought about before. I wondered that no one had written something like it before.

Not what I expected, but worth reading

I do not know why it took so long for me to actually listen to this book, as it has been on my "to read" list for decades. It is a wonderful and thoughtful story (3 actually) that asks tough questions and will cause you to rethink your opinions on some weighty matters.

It is a product of it's time (late 1950's) but is still relevant today. It is a great book to read with a group due to the discussions the book generates. Highly recommend to all!

The voice performance is great... the different characters, the Western accents speaking latin, etc. Unexpected and as strange as the story. Reading it would be a completely different experience.

Not really; it's pretty disjointed and isn't really a narrative story. I found myself thinking more about how Miller came up with it rather than aspects of the story.

Strange, but worth a listen.

I had read this book a long time ago and was always impressed by the author's grasp of the essential destructiveness of humans. Listening to this was a refresher on the bleak possibilities in a post-nuclear holocaust future. A morality tale, well told.

This was not a book of characters, so no one stands out. It was a book of circumstance and plot.

No

Will we never learn?

I was assigned to read this as part of a Philosophy class. I figured not harm in listening to it rather than reading and I could multi-task. I have found myself stuck, not able to pull myself away from the story. Very interesting, funny and thought provoking. Excellent and a total surprise.

This is one of the classic scifi apocalyptic fictions and it still holds up after 50 years. The first section is perhaps the most engaging due to the character of Francis but the 2 that follow are very well written as well. Though 600 years pass between sections it is easy to "catch up" and worth it. There is a plethora of Latin which is sometimes not translated within the text so it may be worthwhile to look for annotations if you're interested. In either case it is a wonderful novel, full of symbolism and religious allusions and serious issues to debate. Science and religion get rather interestingly mixed. Another novel that I find something new in each time, this being my 3rd. There is humor, but there is also an ominous shadow over the narrative.

Every since its appearance in 1960, this has been one of the science fiction novels that anyone interested in the genre (and even those not interested in the genre) has loved. Three separate stories set 600, 1200, and 1800 years after a nuclear war - the monks of the Order of Leibowitz have had their mission in the US Southwest. The bookleggers and memorizers of the order preserve the knowledge of civilization that existed prior to the war and keep it in trust for mankind until it can be used again.

There are much better reviews of the book as a whole that can be found elsewhere. This is a story that grabs you by the lapels at the start and keeps your interest all the way through. The message of Battlestar Galactica - this has all happened before - is presented here in a way that will keep you listening till the end.

The narrator is really wonderful - providing difference cadences and voices which help you differentiate characters and plot lines easily.

Just one historical note. 50 years ago a book could be published with the expectation that the general public would have enough knowledge of Latin as a language to understand phrases without complete interpretation. What does it say about our educational system that this could never be the case today?

I remember this book being on the bestseller list when I was in school. So when it was available on an Audible two-for-one offer I got it. Boy was I disappointed! It was difficult to follow, lacked interesting characters and just is not a good book, IMHO. I would not recommend this book and am surprised to continue to see it on various lists of best sci-fi compilations. I listened to the novel several times because it was so hard to follow but in the end found it a waste of my time. The authors I really like include Octavia Butler, Stephen King, Walter Mosley and Dean Koontz. I like real page turners (metaphorically) and am glad I didn't buy this book in hardcover or paperback form. The only redeeming quality was the reader and that's only because I'm trying to find something good to say about A Canticle for Leibowitz. Not sure why this is considered such a good book. Definitely not my cup of tea!

The narrator was good with the different character voices, but the overall tone was too dry and succinct - as if the narrator was reading the evening radio news instead of a story.

Between the overly verbose conversations and droll tedium there were parts where the story progressed. The continuity between the ages and church vs. state dilemmas are interesting, but you really have to dig through the fluff for it.

I purchased this book on the many five star recommendations that I read, only to be disappointed.

Unlike some of the other 1950-60's books I have read that stood up (i.e. Heinlein's and Aasimov's books), this one did not stand up to the ages well - and I'm not just talking about the use of Latin.

This story could be half as long and accomplish just as much, but it was written in a time when literature was ornately over-worded (i.e. Lord of the Rings, Atlas Shrugged, etc.) so I feel this story fit the generation from whence it came. By today's standards though, it's a bit of a tired slog :(