A Canticle For Leibowitz

Dom Paulo is the new abbot at Leibowitz Abbey. He rereads a letter from Marcus Apollo, unsure of what it is telling him. The letter—which announces the impending visit of Taddeo to the Abbey—appears to be a warning, but he is not sure whether the warning is coded. He reminds himself of Taddeo’s history and connection to Hannegan. His father was Hannegan’s uncle, and his mother is a servant. Taddeo was sent to a monastery to avoid embarrassing his father’s wife. Raised in sight of the palace, he grew embittered and hated the prince. Taddeo grew scornful of religion and committed to science.

Paulo talks with Father Gault, his probable successor. They look at smoke on the horizon and wonder if the “old Jew” is still alive. He refers to Benjamin Eleazar, the old pilgrim. Paulo says he’ll visit him.

They discuss the controversy of brother Kornhoer’s experiment. Paulo doesn’t think the “contraption” will work, a “generator of electric essences.”

He visits the “Poet” to tell him to clean and evacuate his quarters, which Taddeo will use. There is a mutated goat with a blue head. Benjamin gave it to the Poet after losing a game of mumbly-peg to him. He says the goat’s milk is responsible for Benjamin’s longevity.

Dom Paulo believes that humanity is at the end of another Dark Age. Learning does not have the stigma it once did. He ponders the permanence of knowledge and believes that any culture that people can create can be destroyed and forgotten.

In the Abbey’s basement, Kornhoer shows Paulo a lamp he has been working on. It requires a dynamo that he invented. Paulo asks why their predecessors could not recreate the dynamo from Leibowitz’s documents. Kornhoer says that the discoveries take a lot of deduction and that men like Taddeo are required. Taddeo’s recent work provided Kornhoer with useful theorems to augment his work.

Paulo tells Armbruster–the librarian–to remove the crucifix from the alcove where Taddeo will study and place the lamp there. This apparent elevation of science above religion appalls Armbruster, but he agrees.

The next day, Paulo has terrible cramping. To distract himself, he watches the wooden statue of Saint Leibowitz, now hundreds of years old. Gault enters the room and finds Paulo unconscious, with blood between his teeth. He says Kornhoer’s lamp works. Paulo resolves not to let anyone see that he is sick. He doesn’t want people looking forward to his death as an opportunity for advancement.

In a nomad camp on the Plains, Hongan Os (Mad Bear) flogs some of his warriors. His men used horses to tear apart their captives, and Mad Bear finds this undignified for the horses.

His men are uneasy–he shook hands with a messenger from Texarcana. He receives gifts from Hannegan but tells his clan it is plunder from raids. In return, he only agreed to stop stealing cattle from the eastern border.

He meets 12 visitors. One is Taddeo. Os drinks a cup of blood. Taddeo asks for men to keep them safe on their trip. He says they are looking for the skills of sorcery held by the dark-robed monks.

The hermit, Benjamin, watches someone approach his mesa. The rider is Paulo, and he has brought the goat back. Benjamin protests, saying that the Poet won the goat fairly.

Paulo has heard that Benjamin has been throwing stones at novices taking their vigil in the desert. Benjamin doesn’t deny this and says that one of the novices mistook him for Leibowitz. He told men in New Rome, six centuries prior, where to dig for Francis’s body. He says the Poet believes him.

They climb to Benjamin’s shack. Benjamin says he has lived for 32 centuries. He thinks he is the last Jew. They talk about the lamp and the electrical progress. Paulo worries that the secular scholars will make the booklegging work useless and redundant. Benjamin asks him to bring Taddeo to the mesa. Paulo refuses, then leaves.

A messenger from New Rome says there will be war with Laredo. Paulo learns that Hannegan arrested Apollo. He intends to unite the territories and has infected the Laredan cattle with disease, which will lead to famine. Paulo wonders if they’ll be able to protect their books if Hannegan sweeps across the land and demands entrance. Soon, 30 men arrive for a parley. Some are nomads. They are guides for Taddeo. He meets Paulo and then enters the Abbey.

A monk reads from a sacred text in the dining hall. The text chronicles a conversation between God and Satan and is an alternative version of the Book of Job. It ends with Leibowitz begging for the Lord’s forgiveness.

The monks demonstrate the dynamo and the lamp for Taddeo. When the dynamo works, Taddeo gasps. His professional pride is hurt, and he demands to know how long they have hidden the machine. It frustrates him that so much time has been wasted on a theory of electricity when the monks already had a working model.

Taddeo apologizes for his reaction. Because it bothers him that four monks must pedal a treadmill-like device to keep the lamp going, he wants them to remove the lamp, but Paulo refuses to move it. Taddeo studies in the library for days. His men sketch the abbey’s fortifications. Taddeo is excited by mathematical document, but he doesn’t like that Kornhoer is limited to a monastery.

There is a banquet. The monks can eat meat and talk in honor of Taddeo’s visit.

The Poet sneaks into the dining hall and sits at the same table with Taddeo and Arkos. He says someone took the blue-headed goat intended for Taddeo. He is openly hostile to Taddeo and mocks the occasion’s solemnity by joking about bedbugs. The Poet removes his glass eye, places it on the table, and leaves.

Paulo says that Taddeo’s men were studying the abbey as a fortress. Taddeo is shocked, but he composes himself and begins lecturing in the hall. Paulo realizes that the Thon is annoyed; What he thought were his discoveries are only rediscoveries. He hints that the documents should not remain in such an inaccessible place. He lists projects that other scientists are working on.

Benjamin enters, and Taddeo grows pale. Benjamin kneads Taddeo’s arm, says, “It’s still not him,” and leaves.

Ten weeks into the visit, war erupts between Laredo and Texarcana. It ends quickly, and Hannegan takes control from Red River to Rio Grande. He hangs and flays Apollo for treason. Taddeo offers to leave because of his nationality. He worries that he cannot be impartial and that the Abbey will lose face by his presence.

The mayor of the nearby village requests sanctuary in the abbey for the peasants. Paulo agrees, except for men capable of bearing arms. Miller briefly recites the various nomadic conflicts and skirmishes befalling the region.

The Poet vanishes, and Taddeo plans on leaving within a few days. Before he leaves, he tells Paulo that he can’t fight Hannegan because he supports Taddeo’s work.

Taddeo wants Kornhoer to leave with him. He wants to get him a scholarship at the collegium. Gault tells Paulo that Claret has returned from New Rome with a document. When Paulo visits him, he finds Claret suffering from a lethal wound. The document provides evidence that Hannegan considers the Pope a heretic and intends to rule the Church himself.

Taddeo and Gault discuss the book of Genesis. Gault and other monks think Genesis is allegorical. Taddeo proposes a theory based on a fragment found in the library. He says that “man was not created until shortly before the fall of the last civilization,” which makes people 1,200 years old. Modern-day humanity is a “servant species” of Adam’s progeny, which could explain how they have fallen so far short of their prior, advanced state. Paulo hates the theory. When he examines the fragment, he sees it as part of a play, almost certainly intended as an allegory.

Kornhoer gives the crucifix to Paulo. Paolo tells Taddeo that all scholars will always be welcome at the abbey. Taddeo gives him the sketches of the abbey and encourages him to burn them.

The Poet looks around after a fight. He has been shot with a musket. He had intervened during a skirmish between some refugees and cavalry, stabbing a cavalry officer. Later, after the soldiers have fled, leaving only him and the officer, the officer tries to shoot him. The Poet takes a pistol from the officer and stabs the man in the throat. The Poet dies, and buzzards eat him. Generations pass. As the “generations of light” emerge, it is 3781.