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goobster  ·  2078 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Book Discussion: A Canticle for Leibowitz

Thanks for digging in to this with me.

So, I got the cyclical idea pretty early on. Leibowitz himself is basically in the 1950's when the atomic war happens. He's just a dude who is lionized by later generations with little information to go on, just like Jesus. The Order maintains the scraps of technology (the Memorabilia) so the cycle simply repeats again - from Christ to atomic annihilation, and from Leibowitz to atomic annihilation - and starts to repeat again, as the remnants of the order launch into space, having learned nothing from this repeating cycle, and continuing to believe that their maintenance of the Memorabilia is a service to mankind... rather than the recipe for mankind's eventual demise. (Again.)

Great. Humankind can't be trusted with technology. Got it. And the reason this knowledge is available, is because the Order of Leibowitz faithfully collects and maintains it. Got it. The Order is essentially the enabler of man's downfall, by doing the one thing they do: maintain a library of the Memorabilia.

So what?

That "cycle" story seems like a 1500 word blog post. Not a several hundred page book. Especially when key, fascinating characters - Thon Taddeo, Benjamin/Lazarus, the Abbot, the tomato-selling woman, and even Hannigan - are fleshed out... and then summarily abandoned. (Although you are right... the arrow in the skull at the end does provide a modicum of closure.)

When I stand back, and look at the sweep of the story, I see the basic idea that man is the architect of his own demise, but ... is that all there is? There's no wisdom? No lesson to learn? No alternate path suggested that could lead to a different conclusion?

What if, as they boarded the spacecraft, he sees the land and people being destroyed by atomic war, and realizes THIS is the Fire Deluge that also killed Leibowitz... and he looks at the microfiche of the Memorabilia in his hands... and drops it into the fire, steps into the rocket, and ... they take off? He hits the self-destruct button on the rocket, in an attempt to end man's cycle of failure?

Hm.

Again, thanks for digging in with me. I appreciate it. This book is going to stick with me for a while, but not for the reasons I thought...