Canticle for Leibowitz (Black Swan S.)
5 journalers for this copy...
Picked this up at the Book Thing, for BC.
From the cover -
First there was the Fallout, the plagues and the madness. Then began the bloodletting of the Simplification, when the people - those who were left - turned against the rulers, the teachers and the scientists who had turned the world into a barren desert where great clouds of wrath had destroyed the forests and the fields. All knowledge was destroyed, all the learned killed - only Leibowitz managed to save some of his books.
And the monks of the Order of Leibowitz inherited the sacred relics. They spent their lives copying, illuminating, and interpreting the holy fragments, slowly fashioning a new Renaissance in a barbarous and fallen world.
From the cover -
First there was the Fallout, the plagues and the madness. Then began the bloodletting of the Simplification, when the people - those who were left - turned against the rulers, the teachers and the scientists who had turned the world into a barren desert where great clouds of wrath had destroyed the forests and the fields. All knowledge was destroyed, all the learned killed - only Leibowitz managed to save some of his books.
And the monks of the Order of Leibowitz inherited the sacred relics. They spent their lives copying, illuminating, and interpreting the holy fragments, slowly fashioning a new Renaissance in a barbarous and fallen world.
Sadly, MaryZee passed suddenly in September 2012. MaryZee's daughter is now ready to rehome her mom's books and I was willing to collect and redistribute them to keep her literary legacy alive.
Thank you for this Wishlist Book!
Received during the BCinDC's Holiday Party!
Received during the BCinDC's Holiday Party!
Interesting, darkly humorous at times, story of a post nuked Earth. The novel covers several centuries of a Catholic abby that sprouts up due to a new Dark Age. After the radioactive dust settled, the people left behind purged the land of anything intellectual since those were the people responsible. An engineer saved a cache of books and started an order dedicated to the preservation of books and anything educational from pre-Deluge. We watch as the engineer in a later century is canonized (sp) and New Rome goes back and forth from having power to not having power. Will the monks’ dedication to the preservation of knowledge be for the good or bad? Will humanity repeat the disasters of the past? And life will always find a way.
I don’t usually like stories that span several generations, or in this case centuries. At the end of each section I had to convince myself to continue on since that is the end of the characters you’ve grown to know. But it is worth it to continue. I do think those with more knowledge of Catholicism will pick up on more of the symbolism and understand more of the themes running through the story. But for those that don’t, like me, you will still enjoy it.
I don’t usually like stories that span several generations, or in this case centuries. At the end of each section I had to convince myself to continue on since that is the end of the characters you’ve grown to know. But it is worth it to continue. I do think those with more knowledge of Catholicism will pick up on more of the symbolism and understand more of the themes running through the story. But for those that don’t, like me, you will still enjoy it.
Journal Entry 5 by Spatial at The Bookbox of the Apocalypse, A Bookbox -- Controlled Releases on Monday, September 28, 2020
Released 3 yrs ago (9/28/2020 UTC) at The Bookbox of the Apocalypse, A Bookbox -- Controlled Releases
CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
One of the starting books for The Bookbox of the Apocalypse!
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I read this way back in high school in the late 1960s, so I'm leaving the book in the bookbox, but wanted to add my thoughts - especially as I see that this is from the collection of maryzee, a BCer who's still very much missed.
I suspect that when I read the book I was too young for the subject matter - my reading comprehension was fine, but my life experience was very limited, and I probably didn't get as much from the novel as if I'd read it later in life. I was also not as invested in a post-apocalyptic religious order then, though now I find the concept of hand-copying of surviving fragments of a lost civilization quite fascinating!
The book features plenty of darker elements, some of them presented with a kind of bleak humor as a much-tried and perhaps shell-shocked observer criticizes a soldier's brutal technique of hacking a victim to death ("At least you could sharpen your saber," thinks the observer). And some of the humor escaped me back in the day, perhaps because I wasn't used to the idea of a situation this huge and depressing being presented with the full range of emotional responses {rueful grin}.
The story's definitely atmospheric, and even though I didn't quite get it when I first read it, bits of it stayed with me.
[There's a TV Tropes page on the novel, with some entertaining tidbits.]
I suspect that when I read the book I was too young for the subject matter - my reading comprehension was fine, but my life experience was very limited, and I probably didn't get as much from the novel as if I'd read it later in life. I was also not as invested in a post-apocalyptic religious order then, though now I find the concept of hand-copying of surviving fragments of a lost civilization quite fascinating!
The book features plenty of darker elements, some of them presented with a kind of bleak humor as a much-tried and perhaps shell-shocked observer criticizes a soldier's brutal technique of hacking a victim to death ("At least you could sharpen your saber," thinks the observer). And some of the humor escaped me back in the day, perhaps because I wasn't used to the idea of a situation this huge and depressing being presented with the full range of emotional responses {rueful grin}.
The story's definitely atmospheric, and even though I didn't quite get it when I first read it, bits of it stayed with me.
[There's a TV Tropes page on the novel, with some entertaining tidbits.]
Received in the The Bookbox of the Apocalypse & Other Realities
This book traveled back to me in The Bookbox of the Apocalypse.
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Journal Entry 10 by Spatial at Little Free Library #85264 - Catawba in Catawba, Virginia USA on Sunday, October 10, 2021
Released 2 yrs ago (10/10/2021 UTC) at Little Free Library #85264 - Catawba in Catawba, Virginia USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
Dropped off at this cute LFL.
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