On: On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”

[ASlave2Gravity]

Easily one of my favourite novels. It's riddled with beauty; there is a lens held up to the shepherding of knowledge that made me really appreciate what it means to be a scholar.

It's a wild ride and I think a book people should read.

My fav quote,

"When you tire of living, change itself seems evil, does it not? for then any change at all disturbs the deathlike peace of the life-weary.”

[a_e_k → ASlave2Gravity]

Definitely one of my favorites, too. There's an elegiac quality to it that I haven't quite seen in any other novel.

I have a number of quotations jotted down from it, but since this a tech site I'll restrict myself to sharing this one that I sometimes think of when dealing with a recalcitrant machine or mysterious bug:

        "That contraption--listen, Brother, they claim it thinks. I didn't
    believe it at first. Thought, implying rational principle, implying
    soul. Can the principle of a 'thinking machine'--man-made--be a rational
    soul? Blah! It seemed a thoroughly pagan notion at first. But do you know
    what?"
        "Father?"
        "Nothing could be that perverse without premeditation! It must think!
    It knows good and evil I tell you, and it chose the later."

[ASlave2Gravity → a_e_k]

Elegiac is the perfect word for it!

It's a lovely quote too. I remember reading the novel and thinking, 'Holy shit, he's hit the nail on the head!'

I'd happily run a class on it. Whenever anyone asks for a reading list, it's often on there.

I take the novel as a mystic work, much like Meister Eckhart's works. It's a pendulum swing between the secular and the sacred.

[edflsafoiewq → a_e_k]

"Sell it to an atheist! No that wouldn't be kind. Sell it for scrap!"

[glennonymous → ASlave2Gravity]

I would like to read the book and I’m sure it’s good. But whenever a character says “does it not?” I want to soak the book in gasoline and light it on fire.

[ASlave2Gravity → glennonymous]

The 'does it not?' breaks the flow of the quote perfectly. It was intentional, I like to believe; it's as if your peace of a flowing sentence is suddenly interupted by the life of a fantastic writer! :D

[bawolff → glennonymous]

Why?

That is such an arbitrary phrase to have such a visceral reaction to.

[jimbob45 → bawolff]

There’s no shortage of sci-fi books with incredible creativity about what could come about in the future…and little care placed in creating realistic dialogue or character development.

I get where the OP is coming from. If you’re coming from the modern world of well-rounded fantasy sci-fi storytellers of Sanderson and Rothfuss, then reading stories of the past can be very frustrating.