Flame Deluge: A Canticle for Leibowitz

A Canticle for Leibowitz is not just brilliant science fiction. It is a masterpiece by any standards.
Andrew Ravensdale shows that A Canticle for Leibowitz is a very Catholic book. Despite the monks and their Latin it is however not Christian. Miller is a heretic, and does not believe in salvation. By the time he wrote A Canticle for Leibowitz, he had also rejected the belief of the 'Golden Age' science fiction writer in the redeeming power of technology.

Ravensdale demonstrates that Miller's Hugo-winning story The Darfsteller amounts to a literary suicide note. Miller used the metaphor of theatre to announce his intention of giving up writing science fiction. He wanted to put on one last great performance before he quit. That 'one last great' performance was A Canticle for Leibowitz.

A Canticle for Leibowitz was a deliberate masterpiece. The thirty-five years of silence that followed were also deliberate.

Ravensdale believes that A Canticle for Leibowitz is one of the most powerful books of the second half of the twentieth century. Miller's pessimistic vision, though perhaps not literally, remains true in our time.

Andrew Ravensdale is an independent writer.