newcritics

I’ve long held the theory that the great deposits of metals we mine to build our cities are actually found in places where massive cities of metal once stood, and that millions of years had returned them to where we find them now.

Not that I really believe this, but I’ve always found it to be an amusing way of looking at history and mankind’s overwhelming propensity for doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.

Maybe this is why I enjoyed reading A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. as much as I did. Rather I should say I enjoyed re-reading the book (evidence that not everything we do-over is a mistake!). I had read it in a high school lit class, lo these many years gone by.

First published in 1959, A Canticle for Liebowitz begins some time after the end of “All your base are belong to us”. “Somebody set us up the bomb!” “Make your time, gentlemen.” World-snuffing nuclear war has ended, and the remaining vestiges of civilization have entered a new Dark Ages. These days were preceded by a “Simplification” period, during which gangs of bloodthirsty survivors exact revenge against anyone suspected of having contributed in any way to the development of the science and technology of war. Scientists and teachers are hideously “martyred”, and books are burned in the survivors’ attempts to permanently eradicate man’s ability to build tools capable of such horror. The Simpleton becomes the ideal man, pure in ignorance, and perpetually wishing to stay that way.

Naturally, rogue groups of thinkers work to preserve man’s achievements. Most notably is Liebowitz, who during the “Simplification” worked to gather all remaining writings and hide them in casks buried in deserts. This knowledge becomes a new religion, Liebowitz, captured by a Simpleton gang with books in his pants leg, is executed. But monks who worship the Judeo-Christian God add the preservers of knowledge to their lexicon of faith, and copying of “Memorabilia” becomes their devotion.

During the millennium-long Dark Ages, an order of Monks devoted to Liebowitz gathers, catalogs and preserves knowledge relics from the great suicidal civilization (ours).

Eventually knowledge gathers again like storm clouds, man evolves for better of worse, and about 4000 years later commits species-suicide (again) in thermonuclear war.

The irony is unspoken but deep. A devout religious order preserves the very thing which got Adam and Eve cast from the garden, never grasping that their worship of God is really worship of Satan, and that they do the world no favor.

Miller defines the concept of original sin as merely human, because our species will always seek greater knowledge of its universe, without seeking greater knowledge of its inner self. No matter how smart we become, we are helpless against our collective suicidal vision.

The book is considered science fiction and relegated to those shelves in bookstores. It should really be stocked in “Psychology”. Then burnt after it’s been read.

But read it first. Or read it again. It will leave you with the unnerving sense that you’ve been here before, and will be here again.