"A Canticle for Leibowitz"
A reader asks me to start a discussion thread for the Walter Miller novel "A Canticle for Leibowitz," which I'd mentioned in a recent thread. Here ya go! Follow the link to a Wikipedia entry on the novel to know more -- but beware of spoilers.
The novel is set in the future, after a nuclear war has all but destroyed civilization. Roman Catholic monks in a Southwestern abbey have dedicated themselves to preserving whatever fragments of the pre-apocalyptic civilization that they can, in hopes that mankind in the future will be able to make use of the information for the betterment of us all. The novel tracks the rise out of these Dark Ages into a Renaissance and beyond, and explores the tragic nature of the quest for knowledge, the will to power and how they cannot be separated from human destiny. It's a dark meditation on original sin, and the impossibility of knowledge and intellectual enlightenment alone permanently improving the character of man.
Discuss.
The novel is set in the future, after a nuclear war has all but destroyed civilization. Roman Catholic monks in a Southwestern abbey have dedicated themselves to preserving whatever fragments of the pre-apocalyptic civilization that they can, in hopes that mankind in the future will be able to make use of the information for the betterment of us all. The novel tracks the rise out of these Dark Ages into a Renaissance and beyond, and explores the tragic nature of the quest for knowledge, the will to power and how they cannot be separated from human destiny. It's a dark meditation on original sin, and the impossibility of knowledge and intellectual enlightenment alone permanently improving the character of man.
Discuss.
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