A Canticle for Leibowitz
By: Walter M. Miller Jr. / Narrated By: Tom Weiner
Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
Iffy narration doesn’t get anywhere neeeear keeping this from being an absolutely BEAUTIFUL book!!!
Oh, aaaages ago, whenst I was but a girl and still, like, reading books, like in print, my dearest Maman recommended A Canticle for Leibowitz to me. I was kinda on the fence about it; after all, at the time I wasn’t all that into Sci-Fi. But I gave the book a go, and oh my good gosh, was it breathtakingly beautiful, or what?!
So I’d seen this, one of my very favorite stories on sale quite a bit over the years as an audiobook, but I simply could NOT get past the Sample. Tom Weiner, tho’ he does come off a bit like the Poor Man’s John Lee with his sweeping tones, kinda made it seem that the entirety of the audiobook would be a hit or miss. I avoided purchasing it, until I had an absolute hankering to own it. And so it’s sat in my Library until, at my (Dearest!) Maman’s request, I listened to it for her Birthday Choices.
To say I teared up again, even after all these years, even after knowing the stories back and forth, would be a gross understatement. Even Tom Weiner, with his odd choices for character voices, did NOT hold this audiobook back. Tho’ I would NEVER have thought of The Poet as having a growly booming voice, like a brawling sailor, tho’ I would’ve thought Abbot Arkos to have more serious tones, only stumped me for a bit. I admit, I had to peeeeeel the narration back to concentrate on the text, but oh the TEXT!!! Magnificent!
Started as three separate short stories, and written after author Walter M. Miller Jr.’s experiences being part of the bombing of Monte Cassino, Italy, the oldest monastery in the Western World, during WWII, Miller brings us this tale of the Church rising from the ashes.
It starts with “Fiat Homo” with 17-year old Brother Francis in the desert as part of the silence before maaaybe being allowed to take his vows. A chance encounter with a Wanderer, a scruffy and emaciated old man, leaves Francis with a stone marked in Hebrew, AND a hole that opens into an ancient Fallout Shelter. Yes, it dates back to the mid-20th Century (It is now, after all, the 26th Century, after the Flame Deluge destroyed civilization). Francis caaaaarefully explores the unearthed chamber, desperately hoping no Misborn creatures are lurking, and he finds ancient writing, which cooooould be that of the Order’s founder, an engineer named Isaac Edward Leibowitz who devoted his life to preserving wisdom, and writing, and books, and who was martyred after he was caught “booklegging”.
This was probably my favorite of the three sections as Francis is soooo wonderfully lovable. He gets woozy when frightened, he faints when terrified or moved by an excess of emotion, but he sticks to his guns when questioned: He does NOT know if the Wanderer was Leibowitz, he does NOT know if the writing in Ancient English is that of Leibowitz, he simply knows that something extraordinary happened, and he just happened to be there.
The second section is “Fiat Lux” six hundred years later when Man is staaaarting to bring forth learned individuals, a comeback of a bit of Literacy, and a bit of Science. Thon Taddeo is the Century’s Greatest Mind, and he journeys to the Order of Leibowitz to look at the memorabilia that they’ve been preserving, waiting for Great Minds to re-discover the material. Things are iffy, and Weiner’s narration is iffy as well (The aforementioned Poet snarls and howls, when I WOULD’VE accepted more readily the smooth and sardonic tones of a man who sees and declares readily rather than all that hoooowling), and all ends with coming war.
Finally, the last section is “Fiat Voluntas Tua” where Man is enTIREly educated, civilization is advanced once again (This is another 600-years of the passage of Time), and a nuclear bomb has detonated, possibly as a warning shot against nations, but DEFinitely a cause of global unease. The brothers of the Order of Saint Leibowitz are now moving on with plans to extend their Order, their purpose of Literacy, their desperate Hope, to the cosmos to continue Mankind as once again, Madness has descended. A further detonation, and the Order is host to radiation refugees, a struggle between a medicine camp and a camp for Euthanasia of the worst victims, brings out the worst in the Abbot Zerchi. It’s a distressing section, but how it ends is sad, pitiful, but oh sooooo beautiful!
There! There’s so verrrry much to this book, written in a wry and humorous style despite the depth of its topics, and Miller was obviously beYONd inspired when he pulled the three short stories together and added to them, bringing forth novellas which meshed into a gorgeous whole. Be prepared for a bit of Latin as the Order keeps to its roots, maintains the Church. But also be prepared for the horrific made lovely. Each character was beautifully fleshed-out to where caring for them was entirely automatic, and each Era brought so many, many questions to mind. Are we all just to repeat, repeat, repeat? Where is Mercy? Where is Love? And at what price is Hope disappointed, or when is Hope warranted? Can Hope carry dreams into the future when the worst keeps happening?
Lovely, Lovely, LOVELY writing, and even though I questioned some of the voices most mightily, Weiner doesn’t totally blow (High praise indeed, no?), and it was altogether enough to bring on the tears. Most touching, and enough that when all was said and done, and the book ended and the More By This Author flashed on the screen of my phone, I dashed right in and got The Best of Walter M. Miller Jr. and am looking forward to 22-hours of such humane Sci-Fi.
Can’t happen soon enough…!
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