A Canticle for Leibowitz

Please dont ask me for a logical review, it is beyond me. I am still digesting this complex work of art. I was expecting something in the downbeat plodding depression tradtion of On the Beach, or the coruscating biting satire of Heller's Catch-22, but this was way beyond them. Every shade of irony was there from the sly and gentle to the tirades of the last 40 pages, but always shot through with humour, and while it has no use whatsoever for man's hubris, greed and ambition, it respects the individual humans burdened by original sin, and the bleak thesis that man is forever doomed to build up then tear down his works is all pervasive. The very ambiguity of the book makes it impossible to see what exactly Miller believes. Is this a song of praise to the Catholic Church, or a criticism of it? Complex themes about faith and humanism, Church and State, the problem of pain, the thorny problems of knowledge, who should own it, disseminate it or curb it, warnings on mankinds swinging between fear and ignorance, then hubris and greed for power over the earth, are all there, shifting and subtle, with enough symbolism to keep a thousand graduates happy deciphering the clues for decades.... I give up trying to even make a judgement other than that this should be up there with Brave New World and 1984 as a classic of the genre.

Not for everyone, especially if you haven't a clue about Catholicism, or Latin. I get the feeling that every read would bring me new insights, and maybe altering my ideas of what the book is about. A masterpiece in my view.