Praise to Leibowitz

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A Canticle for Leibowitz ( English : Original title A Canticle for Leibowitz is a post-apocalyptic) science fiction - novel of the American writer Walter M. Miller, Jr. , appearing in three parts from 1952 to 1957 in the American magazine The Magazine of Fantasy and science fiction ; in German (translated by Jürgen Saupe and Walter Erev) for the first time in 1971.

reception

Lobgesang auf Leibowitz is the only novel published during the author's lifetime. It is considered a science fiction classic and one of the best apocalyptic novels par excellence. Walter Miller was a US Air Force pilot during World War II . In Italy he was involved in the battles for the Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino . These experiences, which were perceived as traumatic, moved Miller to convert to Catholicism in 1947 and also gave him the plot for the book. Each of the three book parts describes the life of a monastic community in the Abbey of Sankt Leibowitz in a desert in the southwest of the USA at different times: the first part, “Fiat Homo”, takes place in the 26th century (a fictional Middle Ages ), the second, “ Fiat Lux ”, in the 32nd century (a fictional renaissance ) and the third,“ Fiat Voluntas Tua ”in the 37th century (a fictional atomic age ).

Origin and publication history

The later novel Lobgesang auf Leibowitz originally consisted of three short stories, each around 25 to 75 pages long, which Miller published in 1955-57 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction :

  • A Canticle for Leibowitz , also The First Canticle (today: Fiat Homo ; German first published in 1962 in Bern and Stuttgart as Ein Lobgesang für Sankt Leibowitz in the anthology Aufbruch into the third millennium , and in 1981 by Heyne in the anthology 30 Years of Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction as A hymn to Leibowitz )
  • And the Light Is Risen (today: Fiat Lux ; no German single publication)
  • The Last Canticle (today: Fiat Voluntas Tua ; no German single publication)

In 1959 Miller published the three novellas revised into book sections, now for the first time provided with the Latin titles mentioned, as the novel A Canticle for Leibowitz , which he had expanded by around 175 pages compared to the original novellas. This was first published in German in 1971 in hardcover in a small edition by Marion von Schröder Verlag as a hymn of praise to Leibowitz , in 1973 under the same title as an abridged paperback by Heyne, and only in 1979 for the first time in full by Heyne. In 1986 there was a new edition in Heyne's library of science fiction literature , and in 2000 the last revised new edition, now with a foreword by Carl Amery .

content

Fiat Homo

(Let's Make Man)
Canticle of Leibowitz begins 600 years after the demise of 20th century civilization from a global nuclear war known as the Great Flood . In the course of the plot it becomes apparent that as a result of the war there was a violent reaction against the culture of knowledge and technology that had led to the development of nuclear weapons. During this backlash, called simplification or simplification , 20th century books and insights are being destroyed by common people (who call themselves “simple”). Illiteracy became commonplace and scientists were murdered. Isaac Edward Leibowitz was a Jewish electrical engineer in the US armed forces. He had survived the war, converted to Catholicism and became a book smuggler and imprinter ; poor efforts to preserve remnants of the lost culture. Leibowitz was discovered during a book smuggling operation and martyred to death. A crowd of monks from the Catholic " Albertine Order of the Blessed Leibowitz" preserves the memory of the founder of the order. Although they lack the understanding and knowledge of the scriptures and traditions of that time, they carefully preserve and copy technical sketches and other records of the 20th century.

In the 26th century, 17-year-old novice Brother Francis Gerard is on a vigil in the desert. While searching for a keystone for his shelter, a hiker appears, supposedly on the way to the abbey , who shows him the matching stone and inscribes it with two Hebrew characters. The stone fits perfectly and under further rubble, Francis discovers the entrance to a protective bunker in case of radioactive fallout . The bunker contains relics such as handwritten notes on decaying notepads with cryptic lyrics like "A pound Pastramischinken , a can of sauerkraut, six Mazzes bring for Emma." The discovery of ancient documents caused unrest in the monastery because the monks speculate that the relics written by the Blessed Leibowitz himself. Rumors go around that the wanderer - who ultimately never showed up at the abbey - was Leibowitz himself. Francis vigorously denies this, but also insists that the encounter with the Wanderer took place. Abbot Arkos, the head of the monastery, worries that the discovery of so many potentially sacred Leibowitz relics could hold up the canonization process , and sends Francis back to the desert to fast.

Years later the abbey is visited by the Monsignores Aguerra (Advocatus Dei) and Flaught (Advocatus Diaboli). Both should investigate the Leibowitz and Holiness case. Finally, the Blessed Leibowitz becomes Saint Leibowitz after all and Brother Francis is sent to the canonization ceremony as the representative of the monastery. Francis has presents for the Pope in his luggage : the documents from the bunker that he once found and an illuminated blueprint on which he worked for years. On the journey it is attacked and robbed of its illumination. Nevertheless, Francis travels to New Rome and receives an audience with the Pope. Francis presents the remaining documents to the Pope. Francis is murdered on his return journey. The wanderer discovers and buries him.

Fiat Lux

(Let there be light)
In 3174 the "Albertinian Order of Saint Leibowitz" still preserves the half-understood knowledge from the old days before the great flood . Thon Taddeo Pfardentrott, a well-respected secular scholar, has been sent to the monastery by his cousin Hannegan, Mayor of Texarkana. Taddeo is interested in the collection of "memorabilia" received from the Order.

Before his arrival, the abbot Dom Paulo meets with the wanderer, who now calls himself Benjamin Eleazar bar Joshua and lets him know that he is the Eternal Jew .

Meanwhile, Hannegan forms an alliance with the Kingdom of Laredo and neighboring, relatively civilized city-states, ostensibly against the nomadic warriors. In fact, he wants to get the entire region under his control. Monsignor Apollo, the papal nuncio who is at court, reports this to New Rome and is executed as a spy . Hannegan tries to initiate a schism in which loyalty to the Pope is to be punished with death, but the Church excommunicates him.

Fiat Voluntas Tua

(Your will be done)
It is the year 3781 and mankind has again nuclear power and weapons as well as spaceships and extrasolar colonies . Two superpowers rule the world: the Asian Coalition and the Atlantic Confederation have been waging a Cold War for 50 years . The Leibowitz Order's preservation of the memorabilia has contributed to this.

The abbot of Leibowitz Abbey, Dom Jethras Zerchi, suggests to New Rome that the church should put into effect the contingency plans with "certain vehicles" that the church has owned since 3756, since in the city of Itu Wan (Asian Coalition) an underground nuclear explosion took place, which the Atlantic Confederation answered with an atomic "warning shot" over the South Pacific.

In New Rome it is decided to carry out the departure plan within three days. The abbot appoints Brother Joshua to lead the space mission. Selected monks and priests are to leave Earth in the event of a nuclear war and settle on a planet behind Alpha Centauri. The order memorabilia will accompany the mission.

During the armistice , the abbey offers fallout refugees asylum. Here there is a dispute between the abbot and a doctor appointed by the government about the euthanasia of contaminated refugees. A nuclear explosion occurs nearby. Abbot Zerchi is buried by the sinking walls of the abbey. Under the rubble is a skull with an arrow sticking out of its forehead (probably Brother Francis Gerard from the first part of the book). After the abbot's death, the scene pans to Joshua, who is the last member of the crew to enter the spaceship.

As a coda , Miller provides a vignette of the ecological aspects of war: seabirds and fish succumb to the poisonous fallout and a shark swims in particularly deep water and thus postpones its death. The final sentence of the book reads: the shark was "very hungry this season".

Repetition and cyclical history

Scholars and critics have noted the theme of cyclical history or repetition in Miller's work. David Seed says in his book American Science Fiction and the Cold War: Literature and Film (1992): "It was reserved for Walter M. Miller in praise of Leibowitz , in a narrative that spans centuries to show the repetitions." David N. Samuelson, whose dissertation from 1969 is regarded as the "best generally understandable examination of the book", calls the "cyclical theme of technological progress and regression [...] the cornerstone on which the hymn of praise for Leibowitz is built".

The cyclical structure of Lobgesang auf Leibowitz and the cyclical story presented in the book are supported by a number of structural and thematic elements common to the three sections. Although the novel depicts events in a fictional future, the three parts allegorically represent crucial phases in Western history. The first section, “Fiat Homo”, portrays a church as the upheaval of civilization, a counterpart to the “ Dark Century ” after the fall of Rome. The plot in the second part, "Fiat Lux", focuses on a renaissance of "worldly learning" and reflects "deviations from state and church and science and belief". “Fiat Voluntas Tua”, the last part, is an analogy to contemporary civilization, with its “technological marvels, its obsessions for worldly power and its accelerating neglect of faith and spirit”. The literary scholar Edward Ducharme claimed that "Miller's story constantly takes a stand on the conflicts between the scientific search for truth and state power."

The follow-up novel

After his " one-hit wonder " Miller published no further work. He suffered from depression and writer's block and withdrew from both public life and his family. In the early 1990s, the news that Miller was working on a sequel to the Leibowitz material hit like a bomb. And the author really tried to make a comeback. Bantam Books made him a lavish offer, and it took Miller year after year to finally admit that he was not getting on with the story. He even agreed that Terry Bisson would be put at his side as a “ ghostwriter ”. But there was no longer any collaboration. When his wife died after 50 years of marriage, Miller shot himself to death in 1996, leaving a 600-page manuscript. Bisson found a very advanced document, revised it and drafted a conclusion. Hohelied auf Leibowitz (English original title: Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman ) was published in 1997. In 2000, the German translation by Isabella Bruckmann came out. This part also takes place in the Leibowitz world - this time in the year 3244 - and varies the subject again.

Publications

  • A Canticle for Leibowitz , in: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1952–1957
    • A hymn of praise for Sankt Leibowitz , in: L. Pauwels / J. Bergier: Departure into the third millennium. Bern / Stuttgart 1962, pp. 233-263 (Fiat Homo).
    • Lobgesang auf Leibowitz , Hamburg and Düsseldorf, 1971. ISBN 3-547-76745-8
    • Lobgesang auf Leibowitz , edited (abridged) paperback edition, Munich, 1973
    • Lobgesang auf Leibowitz , unabridged new edition, Munich, 1979 ISBN 3-453-30577-9
    • Lobgesang auf Leibowitz , revised new edition, Munich, 2000 ISBN 3-453-16419-9
  • Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman , 1997 (with Terry Bisson)

Awards

Secondary literature

  • Amanda Cockrell: On This Enchanted Ground: Reflections of a Cold War Childhood in Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker and Walter M. Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz . In: Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 15: 1, 2004. pp. 20-36.
  • Günter Koch: Use of language and knowledge of language: Carl Amery's novel "The Downfall of the City of Passau" in comparison with Walter M. Miller's novel "Lobgesang auf Leibowitz" . In: Jan-Oliver Decker: Scandal and breaking taboos - ideal world and home: Images of Bavaria in literature, film and other arts . Passau: Stutz, 2014, pp. 183–201
  • Dominic Manganiello: History as Judgment and Promise in A Canticle for Leibowitz . In: Science-Fiction Studies 13: 2, 1986. pp. 159-69.
  • Alexandra H. Olsen: Re-Vision: A Comparison of A Canticle for Leibowitz and the Novellas Originally Published . In: Extrapolation 38: 2, 1996.
  • Andrew Pavelich: After the End of the World: Critiques of Technology in Post-apocalypse Literature . In: Margret Grebowicz (Ed.): SciFi in the Mind's Eye: Reading Science through Science Fiction . Open Court, Chicago 2007. pp. 185-98.
  • Walker Percy : Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz: A Rediscovery . In: Southern Review 7: 2, 1971. pp. 572-578.
  • David N. Samuelson: The Lost Canticles of Walter M. Miller, Jr. In: Science-Fiction Studies 26: 3, 1976.
  • David Seed: Recycling the Texts of the Culture: Walter M. Miller's "A Canticle for Leibowitz" . In: Extrapolation 37: 3, 1996.
  • Niall W. Slater and Jerry S. Jacobs: Memorabilia: Americanizing Classical and Catholic Pasts in A Canticle for Leibowitz . In: Classical and Modern Literature 19: 2, 1999. pp. 123-31.
  • WA Senior: "From the Begetting of Monsters": Distortion as Unifier in A Canticle for Leibowitz . In: Extrapolation 34: 4, 1993. pp. 329-39.
  • Deanna T. Smid: The Messiah of History: The Search for Synchronicity in Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz . In: Holly Faith Nelson, Lynn R. Szabo and Jens Zimmermann (Eds.): Through a Glass Darkly: Suffering, the Sacred, and the Sublime in Literature and Theory . Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo, Ontario 2010. pp. 243-253.
  • Judith A. Spector: Walter Miller's 'A Canticle for Leibowitz': A Parable for our Time? In: Midwest Quarterly 22, 1981. pp. 337-45.
  • Susan Spencer: The Post-apocalyptic Library: Oral and Literate Culture in Fahrenheit 451 and A Canticle for Leibowitz . In: Extrapolation 32: 4, 1991. pp. 331-42.
  • John A. Stoler: Christian Lore and Characters' Names in A Canticle for Leibowitz . In: Literary Onomastics Studies 11, 1984. pp. 77-91.
  • David J. Tietge: Priest, Professor, or Prophet: Discursive and Ethical Intersections in A Canticle for Leibowitz . In: Journal of Popular Culture 41: 4, 2008. pp. 676-94.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lobgesang auf Leibowitz , unabridged new edition, Munich, 1979 ISBN 3-453-30577-9 , p. 30
  2. ↑ http://www.thehugoawards.org/?s=walter+m.+miller
  3. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from January 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.locusmag.com