Oh yes, they went ahead and did it. Nuclear bombs were launched all over the world, civilization was wiped out, and a few humans beings survived. The North American continent reverted to a pre-technological wasteland and bands of tribal nomads terrorized the remaining population who tried to rebuild a government. Some people survived by joining Catholic monasteries administered by New Rome, located somewhere in the middle of what used to be America. One monastery in particular held the key to the rebirth of technology. This is the premise of A Canticle for Leibowitz by William M. Miller Jr. Many themes are explored in this post-apocalypse science-fiction classic but the idea that ties the whole work together is responsibility.
This story is actually a combination of three short novelettes, each describing a different situation in a different time but all three take place in the same abbey. The Albertine Order of Leibowitz was named after an American radio engineer who was burned at the stake when humans rebelled against any form of intellectualism, killing scientists, teachers, authors, and anyone who had a talent for thinking. The nuclear holocaust was so terrible they felt they wipe out every knowledgeable person to prevent another Deluge of Fire from happening. The Order collects and preserves as many of Leibowitz’s works as they can find and store them safely for future use. The Memorabilia, as they call it, is comprised of writings, blueprints, scientific manuals, and various other books and documents. None of the Memorabilia is understood by the monks.
As “Fiat Homo”, the first story, begins, a monk named Francis is fasting for Lent in the desert of Utah outside the monastery grounds. The description captures perfectly the atmosphere of the wide blue skies, the barren landscape with its vast, open spaces and the overpowering quietude. An old man appears, walking down the road and leads Francis to a mound which turns out to be a building, buried under rubble after the nuclear war. The traveler leaves but inside Francis finds some skeletons and a couple documents, one a note with a grocery list and the other a technical blueprint. Francis is mystified by both and understands neither but he thinks he has found some genuine documents written by his hero Leibowitz.
This story is all about Francis’s commitment to truth. The Abbot Father Cheroki sends the documents on to New Rome to verify their authenticity and to begin the process of canonizing Leibowitz as a saint. Rumors begin to fly around the order that Francis had been visited by an agel who showed him where to find them. Cheroki, who is a bully and sadist with a bit of a mean streak, questions Francis about the incident. Francis tells him the bare truth of what happened without any embellishments or exaggerations. This is a humbling experience for him because Father Cheroki verbally abuses and flagellates him to wring the absolute truth out of him. But Francis sticks to his story no matter how punishing the humiliations get. Francis maintains the consistency of his story because his loyalty is to truth and it is his responsibility to be sincere during this time of trial.
Francis gets put to work illuminating manuscripts and in his free time he chooses to work on illuminating the blueprint he found in what has been proven to be a fallout shelter for colleagues of Leibowitz. The document shows schematics for some radio equipment but the scientifically illiterate monks do not know what to make of it. The awestruck Francis copies it but adds in stylized lettering and floral motifs around the borders, painting the lines with gold paint. He turns the blueprint into a work of art but remains faithful to its original content because, again, his responsibility is to preserving the truth, no matter that that truth is, even if he can not comprehend its meaning.
Finally Francis, in his final test, is commanded to bring the documents of Leibowitz to New Rome for the formal canonization ceremony. His illuminated blueprint has also around the attention of the Pope and they want him to bring it along too. On the road, some bandits take the manuscripts from him. As painful as it is for him to give up his work, his loyalty is to the truth and his duty to deliver the papers, so he pleads with the bandits to allow him to keep the Leibowitz document. They decide it looks worthless so they release Francis and let him take it with him too.
Francis, who ends up as a martyr, is put through several tests. He passes each test by being responsible and honest. This theme of responsibility carries through into the other two stories.
The second story, “Fiat Lux”, takes place hundreds of years after “Fiat Homo”. The Albertine Order of Leibowitz has expanded and their Memorabilia has grown to be a more complete library. One monk has learned through experimentation how to build a lamp. It is a crude piece of machinery, basically a dynamo made of three wagon wheels that are rotated by three monks on treadmills. Another monk keeps the electrical current flowing by adjusting two wires overhead. The author refers to this contraption as “lucifera”, an ambiguous omen since the same term is used to refer to nuclear bombs in the final story. The coming of this light corresponds with the arrival of a secular scientist named Thon Taddeo. He wishes to study the Memorabilia because he is at a crucial turning point where scientific technology is about to be reinvented and they are in need of the pre-Deluge of Fire textbooks. They designate a room for him to use but the lamp’s light does not reach in far enough so they remove a golden cross that hangs from the ceiling to allow more light to come in. Notice the symbolism.
The theme of conflict between science and religion, reason and faith, belief and knowledge, is easy to grasp. Predictably, the abbot Dom Paulo is skeptical of the scientist and so are the other monks. They want to embrace the resurgence of technology but they fear a return to the mistakes made during the 20th century. They approach secular progress with caution, mostly because they do not want another slaughter of intellectuals and they certainly do not want another nuclear war.
Again, the issue of responsibility comes into play. This time Paulo does not want any new technology to be introduced until the human race becomes responsible enough to us it for good purposes only. Thon Taddeo’s concept of responsibility is to use the intellectual tools that scholars have for the improvement of the quality of human life. Despite his reckless speculation, he does provide a good counterpoint to Dom Paulo’s view by explaining that humans can never be perfect and waiting for them to become so will cause just as much pain as bringing back old technologies. Both men have their own concept of responsibility and both have valid arguments to make.
This idea of responsibility is supplemented through the character of The Poet, a free-speaking court jester type of man who lives at the monastery. Although his personality is unpleasant, he functions in the story by directly stating the truth when others try to skirt around more sensitive issues. Most importantly, he has a glass eye that he can remove at will. He refers to his eye as his conscience which he can also remove at will. When he wants to be well-behaved he leaves it in but when he wants to get drunk he takes it out. After The Poet humiliates himself, as well as Thon Taddeo, with his own crude behavior, he leaves the monastery and accidentally leaves his glass eye behind. Thon Taddeo keeps it as a souvenir and by doing so, takes on The Poet’s concept of a removable conscience. Thon Taddeo follows his conscience when he speaks about the need for science to improve the human condition but at other times he speculates wildly, entertaining thoughts that could prove to be dangerous; those are the times when he has removed his conscience and Dom Paulo loudly expresses his disapproval.
As “Fiat Voluntas Dua”, the third and final story, begins, the world is at the brink of another nuclear war. Rather than there being one dominant story line, this chapter is really a montage of three separate plots. The abbot this time is Dom Jethras Zerchi, a tough but earnest leader of the modernized Order of Saint Leibowitz. Zerhci’s main task is to ensure that the traditions of the Catholic church survive as long as the human race does. His responsibility is toward preservation, not of the knowledge that the church and his order hold sacred. The first plot of this story involves his task of finding a priest with experience in outer space, who can lead a team of monks to relocate on another planet. The Order has built a spaceship just for this purpose and one young and inexperienced monk named Joshua has to decide if he is the one to take on the job and deliver the monks, along with the Memorabilia, to a safer place in the universe. This part is simple and self-explanatory and so is the second plot line.
The second thread starts after the bombs have fallen and nuclear fallout has killed or injured the majority of humans in North America. A refugee camp has been set up inside the monastery grounds and the military has sent a crew of doctors to help treat the wounded civilians. One young doctor is given the task of determining which refugees are too wounded or sick to survive. The ones who have no chance are selected and sent away to a euthanasia camp. Zerhci is not pleased with this as he believes people who are sick and suffering terribly should be left to die a painful but natural death. This sets up a conflict between church and state. The consciences of both Zerchi and the doctor are shaken by this situation and both must choose whether or not to remain loyal to their moral convictions. For both men, this is a matter of responsibility which sometimes means doing something even though you do not want to.
The third, and most grotesque, thread of this story is about Mrs. Grales, a humble tomato farmer with a second head that grew out of her shoulder because of a genetic mutation that happened after the first nuclear war. The head’s name is Rachel and Mrs. Grales wants her to be baptized. Her priest refuses the rite so she asks Zerchi to do it instead. By all appearances, the head seems to be nothing more than a lump of dead flesh, an extra appendage without any consciousness. But as the story goes on, people think they can see it smiling or sometimes it appears to be whispering to them in an otherworldly voice.
When the monastery gets bombed, Mrs. Grales is confessing to Zerchi in the chapel. He wakes up with half his body crushed under rubble and as he fades in and out of consciousness, Mrs. Grales approaches him. He has a revelation about Rachel. Due to the nuclear war, humanity is heading into uncharted territory and he thinks that Rachel might be the one to lead them through th wreckage towards salvation. It is hard to tell if Zerchi is hallucinating. In the end he has to be responsible and do what he thinks is right for the Catholic church.
The theme of responsibility is a thread that runs throughout the whole book. With responsibility comes choice and the stories all revolve around the characters making the right decisions. Francis could choose to promote himself by making his encounter with the old man more fantastic than it really was but instead he chooses to stick to the truth and allow the consequences to fall where they will. Dom Paulo can choose to allow science and rationality to displace religion as his epistemological framework but chooses to stay with religion to promote the idea of caution in human endeavors. Joshua can choose to stay on Earth and help the people who survived the atomic blasts but chooses to leave for another planet to perpetuate his religion. Zerchi can choose to interfere with the government euthanasia program but decides not to even though it is against his beliefs. Zerchi also chooses to baptize Rachel even though he is not sure if she is even alive.
A Canticle for Leibowitz succeeds on many levels but it also succeeds for what it does not do. Despite being about the Catholic church, the author does not preach; he does not try to convert the reader. There is little content about God, faith, theology, or mysticism. In fact, discussions about God are almost non-existent in these stories; this could be considered an existentialist version of Catholicism, a Catholicism without God. He does not try to shove religion down the reader’s throat and Miller even seems to have some doubts about religion himself. He does allow the reader enough room to decide what is right or wrong and by doing so, he makes his version of religion look good. For Walter M. Miller Jr., religion is a vehicle and framework for ethics and ethics entail the concept of individual responsibility. He heightens the reader’s sense of responsibility and leaves them with the existential choice of accepting or rejecting the Catholic church he has embraced. The only demand he makes is that you take his line of thinking seriously before doing so. That is why A Canticle for Leibowitz is a good science-fiction novel in the post-apocalyptic subgenre. It transcends its genre and works with themes that are important to everybody, be they religious or not.
Miller Jr., Walter M. A Canticle for Leibowitz. Bantam Books, New York: 1972.
No comments:
Post a Comment