A Canticle for "A Canticle"

Whenever I teach science fiction, I try to include Walter M. Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz. When I don't, I feel its absence, and every time I do teach it, such as this semester, I feel it works. But it shouldn't, because, like George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, history has caught up with it--even earlier in Miller's case. Orwell at least had to wait the 35-odd years until his prophetic date rolled around, but the rites of Miller's post-apocalyptic Catholic Church were gone by the beginning of the 1960's, when the Second Vatican Council changed the liturgy beyond recognition--among other reforms. Why, then, does A Canticle still work? (And the evidence is that it still does by its remaining constantly in print. Even a supposed "classic" sf novel like Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End goes out of print every once in a while.)

First, I think the monastic life that Miller describes in the first section, "Fiat Homo," just seems to fit naturally in a post-apocalyptic culture. The desert and interior portions of the U.S. are what remain relatively unscathed in Miller's future, so their harsh conditions would seem to be ideal for the establishment of monasteries, as happened in North Africa in the period around the time of the fall of Rome. That leads to the second reason: the historical parallels are logical and comfortable. After the fall of a literate society--in Miller's imagining, the "Simplification"--it also makes sense that the monks would once again preserve culture, but in this case, more science than literature and philosophy (one in-joke in the second part of the novel occurs when a scientist identifies a fragment of Karl Capek's R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) as a historical document, not as a work of fiction). And the importance of Latin at such a time is not far-fetched, when the U.S. has broken into fiefdoms, each with its own language--much like happened in Medieval Europe.

The third reason is that in the final section, "Fiat Voluntas Tua," crucial decisions have to be made on the basis of moral theology. An atomic bomb strikes near the Abbey, and Green Star (a futuristic Red Cross) offers voluntary euthanasia for those with a fatal overdose of radiation. The last Abbot tries to convince a young mother to spurn the offers of a doctor that she and her painfully stricken young daughter avail themselves of the "Eucrem" facilities. Miller does not take sides here--or at least to me he doesn't. Perhaps some 50 years later the answer seems more obvious, but, in a sense, the slippery slope that mercy-killing opponents have posited has begun to occur. Now all suffering is deemed by some to be useless and avoidable; thus, if you are grieving for a reason, take a Prozac--don't feel the anguish.

And all I can answer is, I don't know what other people should do, but I know what I would do. Both my parents died long and painful deaths from cancer. My mother had lost mental control before her death--I prayed for her death, because there were no Eucrem facilities available. But I did not want to dull my pain. I once thought that I would begin drinking again when my parents died, but I didn't--I owed them at least that much. And I still feel the pain: I see some dead people, but in my dreams.

These are questions worth thinking about, and Miller's novel brings them up again, as well as the Big Question: will we, because of our nature, repeat this same endless cycle? Since I'm more an Augustinian than a Pelagian, I tend to agree with Miller's answer. Also, Miller throws in two wild cards that are scientifically unexplainable but symbolically effective: Benjamin, the seemingly deathless hermit who lives outside the abbey, and Rachel, Mrs. Grales's second head that becomes preternaturally aware at the end of the novel.

Miller, who like my father and some airmen described by Joseph Heller, flew American bombers in Italy during World War II, broke with the Catholic Church before his death; over what I don't know, but I have read a fierce essay he wrote on post-atomic-war fiction in general, and he was even less optimistic than in A Canticle. (His "sequel" to A Canticle, St. Leibowitz and the Wild-Horse Woman--actually more of a "midquel"--to me is unreadable, and I would like to know what Miller wrote and Terry Bisson added.) Our future perhaps is not coming as the Diluvium Ignis (Flame Deluge) that Miller foresaw, and Frank Herbert's Dune with its mahdis, jihads, and death squads, might be more what we can expect. But a lot of people have not waited for an apocalypse to begin a Simplification.