Himmelhand
Oct 15, 2006, 11:17 PM
So for school I have to read the novel A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. It turned out to be far better than I had expected. In fact, one of the reviews in the back of the book compared it to 1984 and Brave New World. I'd agree. It's a novel that follows a series of monks in the Order of Leibowitz, a monastic order devoted to keeping the knowledge of the previous age (ours) after it destroyed itself in a nuclear war. The book is from the later 1950s, and the Cold War influence is obvious. However, this only makes it more interesting to me. I'd definitely recommend it to you if you're into the more dystopic type of book. In addition, it gives you a chance to use your formerly useless Latin skills, because most of the characters are Catholic clergy. Here is a quote (it's pretty long):
"We are the centuries.
We are the chin-choppers and the golly-woppers, and soon we shall discuss the amputation of your head.
We are your singing garbage men, Sir and Madam, and we march in cadence behind you, chanting rhymes that some think odd
Hut two threep foa!
Left!
Left!
He-had-a-good-wife-but-he
Left!
Left!
Left!
Right!
Left!
Wir, as they say in the old country, marschieren weiter wenn alles in Scherben fallt.
We have your eoliths and your monoliths and your neoliths. We have your Babylons and your Pompeiis, your Caesars and your chromium-plated (vital-ingredient-impregnated) artifacts.
We have your bloody hatchets and your Hiroshimas. We march in spite of Hell, we do-
Atrophy, Entropy, and Proteus vulgaris,
telling bawdy jokes about a farm girl name of Eve
and a traveling salesman called Lucifer.
We bury your dead and their reputations. We bury you. We are the centuries.
Be born then, gasp wind, screech at the surgeon's slap, seek manhood, taste a little of godhood, feel pain, give birth, struggle a little while, succumb:
(Dying, leave quietly by the rear exit, please.)
Generation, regeneration, again, again, as in a ritual, with blood-stained vestments and nail-torn hands, children of Merlin, chasing a gleam. Children, too, of Eve, forever building Edens, and kicking them apart in a berserk fury because somehow it isn't the same. (AGH! AGH! AGH!--an idiot screams his mindless anguish amid the rubble. But quickly! let it be inundated by the choir, chanting Alleluias at ninety decibels.)
Here then, the last Canticle of the Brethren of the Order of Leibowitz, as sung by the century that swallowed its name:
V: Lucifer is fallen.
R: Kyrie eleison.
V: Lucifer is fallen.
R: Christe eleison.
V: Lucifer is fallen.
R: Kyrie eleison, eleison imas!"
So read the book and like it!
"We are the centuries.
We are the chin-choppers and the golly-woppers, and soon we shall discuss the amputation of your head.
We are your singing garbage men, Sir and Madam, and we march in cadence behind you, chanting rhymes that some think odd
Hut two threep foa!
Left!
Left!
He-had-a-good-wife-but-he
Left!
Left!
Left!
Right!
Left!
Wir, as they say in the old country, marschieren weiter wenn alles in Scherben fallt.
We have your eoliths and your monoliths and your neoliths. We have your Babylons and your Pompeiis, your Caesars and your chromium-plated (vital-ingredient-impregnated) artifacts.
We have your bloody hatchets and your Hiroshimas. We march in spite of Hell, we do-
Atrophy, Entropy, and Proteus vulgaris,
telling bawdy jokes about a farm girl name of Eve
and a traveling salesman called Lucifer.
We bury your dead and their reputations. We bury you. We are the centuries.
Be born then, gasp wind, screech at the surgeon's slap, seek manhood, taste a little of godhood, feel pain, give birth, struggle a little while, succumb:
(Dying, leave quietly by the rear exit, please.)
Generation, regeneration, again, again, as in a ritual, with blood-stained vestments and nail-torn hands, children of Merlin, chasing a gleam. Children, too, of Eve, forever building Edens, and kicking them apart in a berserk fury because somehow it isn't the same. (AGH! AGH! AGH!--an idiot screams his mindless anguish amid the rubble. But quickly! let it be inundated by the choir, chanting Alleluias at ninety decibels.)
Here then, the last Canticle of the Brethren of the Order of Leibowitz, as sung by the century that swallowed its name:
V: Lucifer is fallen.
R: Kyrie eleison.
V: Lucifer is fallen.
R: Christe eleison.
V: Lucifer is fallen.
R: Kyrie eleison, eleison imas!"
So read the book and like it!