BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz

Subject: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 Jul 16 - 07:54 PM

Do you guys know what "torrent" is? Some kind of internet file? Relevant to the following:

A Canticle for Leibowitz, though it has yet to be filmed that I know of, has on more than one occasion been adapted as a drama for radio with actors playing individual roles.

There was a BBC Scotland Radio adaptation from 1991. The Scottish actors are quite a list: Alexander "Sandy" Morton, Michael MacKenzie, Alec Heggie, a young Robert Carlyle. The adaptation was written by one Donald Campbell. They didn't get all three sections of the "Canticle," only the first two: Fiat Homo and Fiat Lux.

I gather there are Audiobooks of this book as well.

The Scottish broadcast turns up online as a "torrent" download, if you search for it.

And somebody, I guess working from said download, put a few minutes of it on YouTube. My attempt to link to it, failed; but it is there if you search independently.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Jul 16 - 09:14 PM

Can't say I trust torrent downloads to be safe - and they're very often illegal.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 Jul 16 - 05:23 PM

I looked at the IMDB website (international movie data base) to make sure there were no Canticle for Leibowitz adaptations that I had overlooked. I searched under "leibowitz" and drew a complete blank. Maybe I ought to have searched under the name of the author? Interesting, this is something no-one will film, but its following impresses me. Maybe someday someone will at least attempt a television adaptation, like a mini-series.

My public library has both the novel in question, and its sequel, which although it has more than one name on it, is said to be almost entirely Miller's work -- the writer who finished it, said his work amounted to no more than tying up loose ends. The sequel which title begins I recall with "Saint Leibowitz" is a much longer book -- and that earlier book is a lot to contend with as it is. I looked at both, and they kind of intimidated me.

I read about how the author, as a war pilot, carried out orders to bomb Monte Cassino, which was like a shrine to St. Benedict himself, and the war was something he never quite recovered from. Certainly, in "A Canticle for Leibowitz," the description of being buried under rubble during a bombing was a vivid and harrowing thing. Maybe the author exorcised a demon or two writing the passages.

Anybody else read the "Saint Leibowitz" sequel, and what did you make of it?

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: robomatic
Date: 22 Jul 16 - 05:52 PM

I was extremely moved by "A Canticle for Leibowitz" and recall one time driving north into New Hampshire on a solo camping expedition and hearing over the car radio the University of Southern New Hampshire broadcasting an episode of the radio version where the Abbot is getting Extreme Unction from an 'extra' head on the body of one of the "Pope's children".
The original work was complete in itself. I'm not aware of a follow-up volume. Was it a pre-quel? I'll look for it.

You might like the speculative fiction of R. A. Lafferty.

While I am not a Christian, A Canticle for Leibowitz is one of several works I feel are intrinsically Christian and moving and worthwhile: Among the others:

The Brothers Karamazov
Brideshead Revisited
The Master and Margarita

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 Jul 16 - 01:48 PM

I have read The Master and Margarita, and was delighted with its humor.

review of Canticle

"Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman" was published shortly after the author's suicide. Its events fall in between the second and third sections of Canticle.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: Thompson
Date: 24 Jul 16 - 04:37 AM

Love A Canticle for Leibowitz!

Robomatic, a prequel is like a sequel to a story, but set before the story happens rather than after it.

Keberoxu, torrents are a way of downloading films that rely on many people sharing the same file, so that it can be downloaded in small parts from many servers, resulting in a fast download.

However, as Joe Offer points out, they are often used for distributing malware — malicious software that can harm your computer. Malicious people (or organisations, who knows) send .exe files and Mac .dmg files disguised as individual films or books or music, and poor souls click on these and lose information or have their computers taken over and used for heaven knows what.

I can't understand why film and TV and music distribution companies don't actually make a safe network and use the torrent method to distribute their work and get paid for it.

Last week I saw a box set of Father Ted (funny Irish TV series of the 1990s) in a local Oxfam, and pounced on it and sent it to my elderly brother, who lives abroad and had never seen it or even heard of it. He rang me in a panic and asked how to watch it: his laptop has no DVD slot, and his TV doesn't have a DVD player.

If it were possible to download and pay for this old TV series, at the same kind of price as I paid in Oxfam (it cost me a fiver), I'd be only delighted; I could put it on a flash drive and send it over to him and he could watch it on his laptop. But it isn't. Big gap in the market.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: robomatic
Date: 24 Jul 16 - 03:27 PM

Thompson:
If you re-read my post, you might notice that I did not ask "what is a prequel" I asked "was it a prequel" which might 've indicated to you that I already knew the definition of a prequel.

many torrents are perfectly safe, the torrenters have set up identifiers to alarm each other about malicious and spurious uploads. The main dangers are when modern movies and music are being shared in clear violation of copyright. Many older movies are hard to find and get shared among collectors, and there is sharing of fan originated works. I suspect that a lot of the malware is identified as pornography but it's always wise to be careful.

Regarding DVDs of Father Ted, if your brother has a modern flat screen type television with a thumb drive (LSB) input, he might be able to get a friend to convert the Father Ted DVDs to a digital format such as .avi that the television can understand, then store it to a thumb drive, and the TV might understand it. I have a Samsung LED television and watch most of my recorded movies this way.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: Thompson
Date: 24 Jul 16 - 05:56 PM

Ah, sorry, robomatic, misread your post.

My brother's TV is flat screen, but I don't think there's an LSB (?) input. However, I've left the question to my nephew, aka Tech Support.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: keberoxu
Date: 24 Jul 16 - 06:24 PM

Here, from the little I have glimpsed, is my understanding of the connection between the contents of the two books.

The first, more famous book of course ends when the earth has been left with no humans on it, apart from the dead; and life forms are pretty much limited to the deeps of the ocean, humans having thoroughly laid waste to the land masses and the water within these. I recall a ship carrying the last survivors off the planet.

So, the second book, since it takes place on earth, cannot follow the first. Rather, the events of the book precede by some time the catastrophes that end the earlier book.

"Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman" does give a lot of attention to power struggles within the Church, with characters intriguing to become the next Pope or to be the power behind the next Pope, and a lot of pages and chapters go into those developments.

However, what the second book also has is a character, not in the title, who embodies adolescent rebellion in a grown man's body; the Church, and the monastic life, are things for him to rebel against, and his rebellion is acted out over the course of the book. That means it gets raunchy in places. One character carried over from the earlier book is the wandering Jew. And the rebel I have just described, for all his conflicts and disruptive behavior, finds that he cannot cease to be a spiritual being even if he can't stand the Church: the wandering Jew, of all characters, becomes something of a role model. And that's about all I can relate, although it occurs to me now, that the story is post-atomic in that there are people with congenital defects assumed to be the result of radiation exposure.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Jul 16 - 10:10 PM

I haven't read the "Wild Horse Woman", although I own it. I'm too busy re-reading the original.

The original is a book HIGHLY recommended to librarians, as it deals with the preservation of knowledge -- which while you might not realize it is one of the reasons libraries exist. That is, we're bookleggers. Please don't burn us, especially me, as I break out in a heat rash rather easily.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: EBarnacle
Date: 24 Jul 16 - 11:26 PM

This book is one of my "read every couple of years" selections. I was not aware of the interquel. My copy is an early paperback edition, purchased new.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: Thompson
Date: 25 Jul 16 - 05:43 PM

Haven't read the quel either. Must seek it out.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Jul 16 - 06:00 PM

One reader's online review observed, with regard to the newer book "Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman," that one thing that would make the newer book more accessible to the reader is a working acquaintance with the history of the Roman Catholic Church during the Renaissance. No wonder at first glance I found the writing intimidating, then, as I don't know a lot about that history.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Jul 16 - 06:40 PM

The publishers for the newer book include Orbis and Bantam.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Jul 16 - 09:19 PM

The history of the RC church during the Renaissance is too complicated to deal with here. Suffice to say that power corrupt and absolute power, etc. There was too much power centralized in the Vatican, in Rome as a city, and in the Papacy as an institution. Check out Popes Alexander VI, Julian II, and some of the other "bad Popes." Check out the Synod where a dead Pope was unthroned, and the short reign of Celestine I (I think it was I).

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: robomatic
Date: 26 Jul 16 - 04:03 PM

More Roman Catholic speculative fiction:

"Past Master" by R. A. Lafferty, a society in the distant future manages to spirit away Sir Thomas More to save them from their troubles.

"Hadrian VII" a play after a book by a man who failed to get into the priesthood, basically what he would do if he became Pope. Saw this performed in London.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Jul 16 - 09:09 AM

It can be argued that following the "Fall of Rome" the Christian Church saved what civilization there was left by adopting an imperial model based upon the Roman Empire. (This inevitably led to the dissolution of the Celtic Church, which used a model of diverse centers and consensus.) Miller adopted this model as the premise for the book.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: keberoxu
Date: 28 Jul 16 - 08:42 PM

I'm now reading the "Saint Leibowitz" newer lengthier book. I find it highly entertaining, and the more irreverent it is, the better it pleases me, actually. Frequently, readers of the first book hate the second one, precisely for the differences between them.

For a number of my adult years I was a New Mexico resident, and made visits to both Texas and Oklahoma. The holy wars carried on in the name of the book's Church take place in those areas mostly, and much is made of the pre-Christian, earth-and-sky-based beliefs of the nomadic nations of people who still populate the plains and the rural places outside the disputed cities. All of this takes me back to my years of living in the Southwest. Predisposes me, in all honesty, to favor this book.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: keberoxu
Date: 03 Aug 16 - 03:09 PM

Yesterday at long last, a copy of each of the Leibowitz/Miller books was in my hands and under my roof. Spent much of last night reading.

Robomatic, the Extreme Unction passage you describe is part of the apocalyptic ending of A Canticle for Leibowitz, in the final third of the book, with the sub-title Fiat Voluntus Tua, or Thy Will be Done. Yes, it is highly emotional, and good writing as well.

I believe I have hit upon a fellow author to whose work "Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman," with all its controversy and polarizing of its readers, is compatible. That author is the late great Edward Abbey. Abbey is the aspiring novelist whose claim to fame is more due to his non-fiction than his fiction, the essayist who wrote jeremiads against the despoilers of the wilderness of the North American West (and Mexico too, to be fair).

The power-mongering and war/hostilities between different leaders of human societies, played out on the grasslands, plains, canyons, and high mountain desert of the American Southwest, is a setting in which Abbey would feel right at home. Abbey often stated that he wanted to be reincarnated as a buzzard -- and in "Saint Leibowitz," the buzzard is symbolic of the dark aspect of the Goddess of Creation, the Devouring Mother with her endless cycle of consuming and destroying her own creation so as to create anew.

No wonder the readers who felt at home, initially, with the cloistered patriarchy of "A Canticle for Leibowitz" were scandalized and horrified with the newer book. When people hate "Saint Leibowitz and the Horse Woman," they really, truly, madly, deeply hate the book: one reviewer went so far as to compare it to Philip K Dick at his most insane. I don't find the newer book insane at all; but then, I have a warm soft squishy spot in the cockles of my heart for Edward Abbey, who is brought to mind by so many passages in the book.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: keberoxu
Date: 03 Aug 16 - 07:38 PM

Near the end of the post that opens this thread, I mentioned that a few minutes of actors' adaptation could be heard as a video soundtrack, but I could not make a clickable link to it.

So here is a non-clickable link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIMOpVMSkNQ

Besides the plainchant of the monks in the background, the voices are:
Robert Carlyle, as Brother Claret
Michael MacKenzie, as Dom Paolo (father Abbot)

The few audible minutes come at the beginning of "Fiat Lux", the second section of "A Canticle for Leibowitz."

that code might be v=blMOpVMSkNQ, not sure....

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: Thompson
Date: 04 Aug 16 - 05:30 AM

Picky, picky, picky, but it's kind of inaccurate to refer to western Christianity at the time of the Renaissance as Roman Catholic – not literally, but in the sense that 'Roman Catholic' is a term usually used to distinguish original western Catholicism from the Catholicism of the Anglican church.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: EBarnacle
Date: 21 May 18 - 11:30 PM

Just finished saint Liebowitz and the Wild Horse Woman. Although it takes place in the same universe as Canticle, I find it difficult to accept as being written by the same author. This book is very heavily based on mysticism, and is almost entirely devoted to the war between Hannegan, the Plains tribes and the schismatic papacy. It takes place before the final chapter of Canticle and many of the same characters either appear or are mentioned. In some ways it is richer than Canticle spending a lot of verbiage on the central character's internal life. Interesting book, worth reading once, but unlike Canticle, not one I would read repeatedly.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 May 18 - 03:21 PM

Rapparee, have you read Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman yet?
You may find that the Pope Celestine I story is parodied in the book,
although I can't be certain since I don't really know my history.

EBarnacle, your response surprises me not at all.
My first reading of the book was off-putting,
there were some passages here and there which piqued my interest
but I found the whole thing overwhelming the first time too.

For me personally,
it is a satire that improves with further reading.
Erm, mysticism?
You mean all that stuff about the dark side of the Goddess? hmmm...

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: EBarnacle
Date: 22 May 18 - 10:58 PM

A large part of the mysticism was the heavy reliance on visions and hallucinations by Blacktooth and, apparently, by others. I didn't find it as much overwhelming as just heavy handed. Cantiicle moved smoothly by not being excessively detailed. How many pages have to be allotted to the details of Blacktooth's diarrhea? This is a novel, not "The Rise and fall of the Roman Empire." A good editor could have removed 50 or more pages without hurting the story.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 May 18 - 02:03 PM

Just another detail:

The more famous of the two books,
"A Canticle for Leibowitz,"
may not have been conceived as a novel at all.
I would have to go looking for references and all, but if memory serves,

"A Canticle for Leibowitz" has its origins
in a series of short stories that first appeared
in periodicals/magazines,
and were later compiled under the well-known title.

So, Miller was really no novelist at all ...
his expertise was greater in shorter works of fiction
for submission to periodicals, if I understand this right.

If I'm not mistaken in this,
then this fact goes a long way towards
explaining why these two "Leibowitz" books are so very different.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: EBarnacle
Date: 24 May 18 - 01:07 AM

According to Wikipedia, the stories/novellas appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction prior to being turned into the book.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 May 18 - 10:11 AM

"Roman Catholic" is used to distinguish it from the Eastern Catholic churches.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: Charmion
Date: 24 May 18 - 10:45 AM

Thank you for that, Rap. It's a nice, and usually overlooked, distinction.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: Newport Boy
Date: 24 May 18 - 12:35 PM

According to Wikipedia, the stories/novellas appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction prior to being turned into the book.

Light dawns! I knew I hadn't read the book, but I now remember reading a number of the short stories in the late 50s.

Phil

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: keberoxu
Date: 24 May 18 - 03:36 PM

Walter M. Miller, Jr.: A Reference Guide to his Fiction and his Life is a book compiled by William H. Roberson, which may be previewed at books dot google dot com. I've pulled up my preview in a separate tab and am copying here what the pages say.

The short story, "A Canticle for Leibowitz," was published in
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, no. 8, dated April 1955, pages 93 - 111.

This first story, expanded and revised, became
Part One, titled "Fiat Homo," of the later book.

The novella, "And the Light is Risen," was published in
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, no. 11, dated August 1956, pages 03 - 80.
This novella, after revision, became
Part Two, titled "Fiat Lux," of the later book.


The novella, "The Last Canticle," was published in
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, no. 12, dated February 1957, pages 03 - 50.
This novella, when the later book was published, became
Part Three, titled "Fiat Voluntas Tua."

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: Bill D
Date: 25 May 18 - 12:19 PM

I read all parts of the series many years ago... so I 'probably' still have those F&SF magazines... in boxes of old SF stuff which I am planning to give away..(as no one seems to buy old paperbacks any longer). There is a place called "Friends of the Library" here which takes in gifts and sells them cheaply to benefit the library.
I am in the Wash DC area, and would be glad to share any or a thousand or so SF books and magazines.... but fairly soon.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: beardedbruce
Date: 25 May 18 - 12:31 PM

Bill D,

Brig them to the Getaway, and put them in the silent auction- maybe 10-20 in a group.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 May 18 - 09:24 PM

Well, yes, in "Wild Horse Woman"
there is a heavy emphasis on how
a battle/war campaign is a hellish experience,
so I guess that was partly the point of the Blacktooth malady.

Note, also, that there are mysticism of different sorts.
What we have in the later Leibowitz book
is a bunch of warrior cultures,
so this is warrior mysticism, all about life and death,
victory and defeat, survival and slaughter.

The one character who conceives and gives birth
does so while there is a war going on,
and only the "wandering Jew" character is there
to see that she does not die giving birth.
Everybody else is either fighting, strategizing, or in hiding.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: keberoxu
Date: 30 May 18 - 04:14 PM

I still wonder if there are Edward Abbey readers out there
who have read the Leibowitz books,
and vice versa.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: robomatic
Date: 04 Jun 18 - 08:57 PM

Today found a young reader at the coffee shop just staring a fresh paperback of C for L. And by 'fresh' I mean a recent publication. Wore her ear off telling her how much I felt for that book. She found some reason to leave within a few minutes.

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: keberoxu
Date: 07 Jun 18 - 12:16 AM

My sympathies, robomatic.
I have had similar experiences,
both as the teller and the tellee. (?)

Subject: RE: BS: A Canticle for Leibowitz
From: robomatic
Date: 07 Jun 18 - 10:15 PM

She got off easy. At least we didn't get on to The Simpsons!