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slichto3 's review for:
A Canticle for Leibowitz
by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The first time I read this, I loved it. On reading it again... meh.
The story is set in the future, after there's been an apocalyptic nuclear war. A group of monks are in the order of Leibowitz (or something like that) and live in the desert trying to protect and store the records of the past. We follow one monk, who is led by a mysterious wanderer to a relic relevant, and exciting to the order. Then the story is mostly about the rest of that monk's life and the slow progress of the research on that relic.
Then the story skips ahead to the farther future, where a ruler is trying to unite a good chunk of I guess the former United States, while the Leibowitz monks meet with a scholar who may be their enemy. And finally, the story skips ahead once more to the even farther future, where this society has actually surpassed the technology of now but tumbles forward to yet another nuclear war.
This book got less enjoyable to me as it went on. It started slow, but I ended up warming to the first story a bit. The characters felt more likable to me, and the pace felt more natural. But when the story switched, I started to enjoy it less. The characters felt less real and more like caricatures meant to be straw men for a particular idea or attitude. It felt like the author was trying to paint good guys and bad guys, but it just felt like main guys and flat guys.
And the philosophies of the main guys seemed under explored and under explained, and instead seemed like arbitrary stubbornness. So I found the second and third stories to be tedious. The ultimate point of the book was, I suppose, somewhat interesting - human nature tends to repeat itself. But by sticking with the monks, I didn't feel like the story really explored that idea all that effectively.
I think when I first read this story, the structure kind of wowed me. But after getting over that initial wow-ness, I feel underwhelmed about the execution and the story idea itself.
The story is set in the future, after there's been an apocalyptic nuclear war. A group of monks are in the order of Leibowitz (or something like that) and live in the desert trying to protect and store the records of the past. We follow one monk, who is led by a mysterious wanderer to a relic relevant, and exciting to the order. Then the story is mostly about the rest of that monk's life and the slow progress of the research on that relic.
Then the story skips ahead to the farther future, where a ruler is trying to unite a good chunk of I guess the former United States, while the Leibowitz monks meet with a scholar who may be their enemy. And finally, the story skips ahead once more to the even farther future, where this society has actually surpassed the technology of now but tumbles forward to yet another nuclear war.
This book got less enjoyable to me as it went on. It started slow, but I ended up warming to the first story a bit. The characters felt more likable to me, and the pace felt more natural. But when the story switched, I started to enjoy it less. The characters felt less real and more like caricatures meant to be straw men for a particular idea or attitude. It felt like the author was trying to paint good guys and bad guys, but it just felt like main guys and flat guys.
And the philosophies of the main guys seemed under explored and under explained, and instead seemed like arbitrary stubbornness. So I found the second and third stories to be tedious. The ultimate point of the book was, I suppose, somewhat interesting - human nature tends to repeat itself. But by sticking with the monks, I didn't feel like the story really explored that idea all that effectively.
I think when I first read this story, the structure kind of wowed me. But after getting over that initial wow-ness, I feel underwhelmed about the execution and the story idea itself.