A Canticle for Leibowitz Trivia

(1)

Walter M. Miller's short, yet prolific, writing career is one for the record books—in both good and sad ways. Miller began publishing science fiction stories in 1951 and stopped in 1957 to focus, we suppose, on A Canticle for Leibowitz.

A Canticle was "at least five years in the making" before its completion in 1959. After finishing the book, Miller just stopped writing at age thirty-six—just when his career had reached new artistic and critical heights. No one really knows why.

Scholar David Samuelson offers some suggestions: perhaps Miller didn't want everything he wrote to be compared to A Canticle; perhaps A Canticle so completely obsessed his writer's habit that he burned himself out on the project; or perhaps he said everything he wanted to with A Canticle, and so he had nothing more to write.

That last explanation, though possible, seems unlikely. Miller did work on a midquel, Leibowitz and the White Horse Woman. (Samuelson, whose essay was published in 1976, could not have known this fact.)

But Miller's suicide in 1996 meant he never finished his second novel. A Canticle was his first, last, and most famous novel.

(2)

The three parts of A Canticle for Leibowitz are given Latin names. Translated, their titles read: Let There Be Man (Fiat Homo), Let There Be Light (Fiat Lux), and Thy Will Be Done (Fiat Voluntas Tua).

Fiat lux comes from Genesis 1:3 when "God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light." It's also a bit ironic, because this is the part of the story where electric light is rediscovered. The phrase fiat voluntas tua comes from the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13), but might also reference Jesus' prayer on the Mount of Olives (Luke 39-44). Either way, it hints that humanity is not in charge of its own destiny.

As for Fiat Homo, well, that one's origin is a little more questionable. It doesn't seem to have a Biblical origin, but the phrase could be a play on fiat lux, again referencing Genesis and the beginning of things. Either way, get used to that Latin because these subtitles are just a taste of what's to come. (Source.)

(3)

Think the nuclear apocalypse as depicted in A Canticle for Leibowitz is just a work of fiction? Well, it is, actually, and here's hoping it stays that way. Thanks to the efforts of various world leaders and state departments, we've done much to curb the proliferation of and dangers of nuclear weapons this century. But these city-sundering horrors remain a terrifying proposition for our way of life—or, for that matter, life in general.

Here are just a couple brain-snacky facts to consider about nuclear weapons:

• The United States tested 1,030 nuclear weapons between 1945 and 1992. That's roughly twenty-two blasts of irradiated death detonated on our planet every year for forty-seven years, and we haven't even gotten to the other countries yet. (Source.)

• The largest nuclear weapon ever tested was Russia's Tsar Bomba, a hydrogen bomb with a yield of roughly 50,000 kilotons. It was tested once, resulting in a mushroom cloud that rose over forty miles high, a blast with the potential to produce third-degree burns up to sixty-two miles away, and a shockwave that did a number on windows as far away as Finland and Norway. For some perspective, that's 3,333 times more bang for your buck than Little Boy, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. (Source.)

• No one knows exactly how many nuclear weapons are stockpiled, but that doesn't mean we can't make some truly alarming estimates. Ploughshare Funds did the math, and puts the current number of nuclear weapons at 17,300. Russia leads the pack with a whopping 8,500 weapons, but America receives the silver with a respectable 7,700. France falls way behind, taking home third place with its grand total of 300. (Source.)

So far, we've been lucky that no international kerfuffle has required these big guns. But, just in case, we're going to brush up on our Latin.

(4)

The phrase "illuminated manuscript" is often used to describe an artistic medium where manuscripts are accompanied by illustrations done in that distinct Middle Ages style. But we are nothing if not technical here at Shmoop. So here goes.

A manuscript is only "illuminated" if the artist has inlaid gold or silver leaf onto the page. A leaf, by the way, is what you get when you hammer gold or silver into a super thin sheet (paper thin). If the author included all the colors of the rainbow, but no gold or silver leaf, then the manuscript is not technically illuminated. Really, really pretty? Sure. But not illuminated. (Source.)

We also tend to think of illuminated manuscripts as the artistic output of ardent monks, who transcribe copies of ancient works day in and day out in the scriptorium—the room of a monastery dedicated to the copying and creation of manuscripts (source). While this is how many illuminated manuscripts were created, it's not the whole story. Again, we're getting technical here, okay?

As rich individuals began collecting for private libraries as early as the 12th century, illumination became a full-fledge craft. Some illuminators were "independent, itinerant artists who traveled from place to place looking for commissions" while the crème de la crème "held the rank of court artists at the exclusive service of a wealthy patron." They even formed guilds—ancient trade unions with a dash of secrecy for some flavor, like the Freemasons. (Source.)

(5)

As David Hume once said, "the future will resemble the past," and many science fiction writers have taken this principle to heart when constructing their futuristic societies. (Source.)

Take Asimov's Foundation, Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, and Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz as examples. But sometimes—just sometimes—the future takes to drastic detour from its past route. And in Miller's case, the future turned left at the Second Vatican Council.

Pope John XXIII called for the council to provide "spiritual renewal" for the Catholic Church. As such, from 1962 to 1965, the council dusted off the old decrees, added new ones, and updated the Catholic constitution to meet the challenges faced by a thousand-plus-year-old institution in the modern world.

Covenants do need to be aired out from time to time.

Among the additions was the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. This constitution stated that Latin was "to be preserved in the Latin rites" but that "readings of directives" as well as "some prayers and chants" will be given in the "vernacular language." In other words, as much of the Mass as possible was to be given in the language of the people attending. (Source.)

So many of the church services Miller includes in the novel wouldn't have been in Latin. They would have been written in English, or whatever passes for English in the 26th Century. But since Miller's novel came out in 1960—two years before the Second Vatican Council—we get an outdated model of the Catholic Church in the future.

Wacky, right?

Of course, this brain snack isn't meant to devalue Miller's novel. Far from it. We bring it up for two reasons: first, it's interesting; and second, it suggests that the value of a science fiction novel isn't in its ability to predict the future accurately. Its value rests in its ability to capture humanity's biggest questions and moral conundrums, which transcend time. (Source.)