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Search - A Canticle for Leibowitz

A Canticle for Leibowitz
Author: Miller, Walter M., Jr.

This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition. NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED. — ISBN for this copy is 0-553-27381-7 — Book Description: — A Canticle for Leibowitz is divided into three sections, each of which takes us further into the future. The first section, Fiat Homo, is set several hundred years in the future -- se... more »veral hundred years from the devastation of a nuclear holocaust, which is given by Mr. Miller as having occurred in the early 1960's.

Civilization is gone, and the survivors have systematically purged themselves of all doctors, scientists, and men of learning. Anyone with knowledge of the old ways is seen as a reminder of the people who brought the devastation in the first place. The church has become, once again, the storehouse of ancient knowledge, with its monks memorizing books and transcribing the pitiful remains of book print into illuminated manuscripts. Leibowitz is a figure from the early days following the holocaust. He is a booklegger -- a man who moves books from place to place at great peril to his personal safety. At some point he is caught and executed slowly. The church has made him a martyr, and the Albertian Order of Leibowitz is in the process of trying to make him a saint.

As A Canticle for Leibowitz begins, one of the newest members of the Order of Leibowitz, Brother Francis Gerard of Utah, is out in the Great Salt Lake fasting. He is bemoaning the fact that he cannot find a rock in the shape of an hourglass that will fit a space in the roof of his shelter. An old man wanders down the road toward him, and after a bit of sparring, the old man decides that he will find a right-fitting rock for Francis, in gratitude for some information that Francis has supplied. Francis eventually stumbles across the rock that the old man has left his mark on, and upon removing it, discovers he has stumbled upon an old bomb shelter. Briefly, certain artifacts are uncovered outside the shelter that may well have belonged to Leibowitz. There is even talk among the lesser members of the order that Francis may have encountered Leibowitz himself -- talk which infuriates the monastery's abbot, who sees the possible negative implications of an order of monks happening upon a cache of saintly artifacts at the exact moment it is bidding for its founder's Canonization.

In Fiat Voluntas Tua, the third and final section of A Canticle for Leibowitz, men have reached the stars and are colonizing the planets that circle them. But men have also come full circle in that the planet Earth is once again threatened with nuclear holocaust.

ISBN: 201879
Publication Date: 1959
Pages: 311
Rating:

Currently 2.5/5 Stars.

2.5 stars, based on 1 rating

Publisher: Bantam Books
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Member | Write a Review

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Rebecca K. reviewed A Canticle for Leibowitz on 7/7/2006 + 21 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

Fascinating, futuristic novel depicting the rebirth of humanity and society after the earth's devastation. The Library Journal calls it "exciting, imaginative," and "unconditionally recommended."

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Jeff C. (ozymandias) reviewed A Canticle for Leibowitz on 2/12/2011 + 11 more book reviews

Good book about the continuation and protection of knowledge in a post-apocalyptic world.Leibowitz is an engineer that died in a nuclear holocaust and is up for sainthood from a medieval-like abbey of a Catholic church.

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A Canticle for Leibowitz

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