Saturday, May 29, 2010

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller



So I'm sitting in on a summer class in part because half of the reading list was on my list of books I need to read this summer, and in part because Dr. Wright is teaching it. The title, if you can believe it, is "North Atlantic Philosophy at the Limit of Modernity: The Parallel Projects of Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor." MacIntyre, you'll recall, is the philosopher over whom Daniel and I bonded when we were first dating, or pre-dating, if you will. Daniel was reading MacIntyre because Dr. Wright recommended him, and I was reading MacIntyre because my philosophy prof, Dr. Thompson, recommended him, and it was just a joyful little confluence of reading recommendations.

Dr. Wright's first assignment was a 1959 Catholic science fiction novel (quite the genre, I know) that influenced MacIntyre's first major work and that gives valuable imagery for the subsequent course material, pictures upon which to hang the ideas that MacIntyre and Taylor present.

The director of the library walked by while I was reading Canticle and told me he became a librarian in part because of the book. One of the most meaningful functions of fiction is its ability to put into a few short scenes concepts that would takes pages of non-fiction prose to elucidate. With that in mind, I'm just going to catch a couple of the most important passages that I found in Miller's novel.

A fantastic picture of Taylor's concept of enchantment:

"In his own mind, there was no neat straight line separating the Natural from the Supernatural order, but rather, an intermediate twilight zone. There were things that were clearly natural, and there were Things that were clearly supernatural, but between these extremes was a region of confusion (his own)—the preternatural—where things made of mere earth, air, fire, or water tended to behave disturbingly like Things. For Brother Francis, this region included whatever he could see but not understand. And Brother Francis was never 'sure beyond a doubt,' as the abbot was asking him to be, that he properly understood much of anything. Thus, by raising the question at all, Abbot Arkos was unwittingly throwing the novice’s pilgrim into the twilight region, into the same perspective as the old man’s first appearance as a legless black strip that wriggled in the midst of a lake of heat illusion on the trail, into the same perspective as he had occupied momentarily when the novice’s world had contracted until it contained nothing but a hand offering him a particle of food. If some creature more-than-human chose to disguise itself as human, how was he to penetrate its disguise, or suspect there was one?"

The conflict of the secular perception of humans and the Christian view:

"'Look at him!' the scholar persisted. 'No, but it’s too dark now. You can’t see the syphilis outbreak on his neck, the way the bridge of his nose is being eaten away. Paresis. But he was undoubtedly a moron to begin with. Illiterate, superstitious, murderous. He diseases his children. For a few coins he would kill them. He will sell them anyway, when they are old enough to be useful. Look at him, and tell me if you see the progeny of a once-mighty civilization? What do you see?'
'The image of Christ,' grated the monsignor, surprised at his own sudden anger. 'What did you expect me to see?'
The scholar huffed impatiently. 'The incongruity. Men as you can observe them through any window, and men as historians would have us believe men once were. I can’t accept it. How can a great and wise civilization have destroyed itself so completely?'
'Perhaps,' said Apollo, 'by being materially great and materially wise, and nothing else.'"

An excellent inversion of the anti-intellectualism often associated with Christians:

"A young monk who was studying for the priesthood stood up and was recognized by the thon.
'Sir, I was wondering if you were acquainted with the suggestions of Saint Augustine on the subject?'
'I am not.'
'A fourth century bishop and philosopher. He suggested that in the beginning, God created all things in their germinal causes, including the physiology of man, and that the germinal causes inseminate, as it were, the formless matter—which then gradually evolved into the more complex shapes, and eventually Man. Has this hypothesis been considered?'
The thon’s smile was condescending, although he did not openly brand the proposal childish. 'I’m afraid it has not, but I shall look it up,' he said, in a tone that indicated he would not.
'Thank you,' said the monk, and sat down meekly."

History repeats itself, as the novel so skillfully illustrates. Try to build the kingdom of heaven on earth and it will end only in destruction:

"Too much hope for Earth had led men to try to make it Eden, and of that they might well despair until the time toward the consumption of the world—"

A perceptive acknowledgment of the gnostic heresy:

"Abbot Zerchi smiled thinly. 'You don’t have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily.'"

And, of course, the unbelievably incisive ending scenes, with the recognition of the secular need to eliminate suffering and the depiction of the competing allegiances of the state and the church:

"Abbot Zerchi groped for a sharp reply, found one, but swiftly swallowed it. He searched for a blank piece of paper and a pen and pushed them across the desk. 'Just write: "I will not recommend euthanasia to any patient while at this abbey," and sign it. Then you can use the courtyard.'
'And if I refuse?'
'Then I suppose they’ll have to drag themselves two miles down the road.'
'Of all the merciless—'
'On the contrary. I’ve offered you an opportunity to do your work as required by the law you recognize, without overstepping the law I recognize. Whether they go down the road or not is up to you.'"


No comments: