An excellent review! I first read Canticle while in high school years ago, but when I read it again last year, it felt completely fresh, with so much that still speaks to our time. One of my favorite passages was from the third novella, when Abott Zerchi sees a statue of Christ that looks as if it’s been shaped to reflect modern sensibilities, based on the use of psychological principles and Big Data. I quote it below in full for anybody who hasn’t read it yet (no spoilers here):
“He glanced at the statue which the camp workers had erected near the gate. It caused a wince. He recognized it as one of the composite human images derived from mass psychological testing in which subjects were given sketches and photographs of unknown people and asked such questions as: ‘Which would you most like to meet?’ and ‘Which do you think would make the best parent?’ or ‘Which would you want to avoid?’ or ‘Which do you think is the criminal?’ From the photographs selected as the ‘most’ or the ‘least’ in terms of the questions, a series of ‘average faces,’ each to evoke a first-glance personality judgment had been constructed by computer from the mass test results.
This statue, Zerchi was dismayed to notice, bore a marked similarity to some of the most effeminate images by which mediocre, or worse than mediocre, artists had traditionally misrepresented the personality of Christ. The sweet-sick face, blank eyes, simpering lips, and arms spread wide in a gesture of embrace. The hips were broad as a woman’s, and the chest hinted at breasts—unless those were only folds in the cloak. Dear Lord of Golgotha, Abbot Zerchi breathed, is that all the rabble imagine You to be? He could with effort imagine the statue saying: ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me,’ but he could not imagine it saying: ‘Depart from me into everlasting fire, accursed ones,’ or flogging the moneychangers out of the Temple. What question, he wondered, had they asked their subjects that conjured in the rabble-mind this composite face? It was only anonymously a christus. The legend on the pedestal said: COMFORT. But surely the Green Star must have seen the resemblance to the traditional pretty christus of poor artists. But they stuck it in the back of a truck with a red flag tied to its great toe, and the intended resemblance would be hard to prove.”
This is one of the best book reviews I have read this year! Bethel, you have a marvelous way of weaving biography and fiction to reveal the underlying tapestry of the story. This book was one of my birthday wishes last year as it had been recommended to me by so many friends, and it inspired a post that my husband and I wrote together on "booklegging" and building book monasteries (https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/a-guide-to-booklegging-how-and-why). The details you provided about Miller's life stunned me, and I'll be rereading sections of the book in a new light. I'll be sure to follow your future writing in other publications as well!
Thanks for a beautiful distillation of what makes this book at once beautiful, disturbing, and alive. The scenes narrating the unfeeling brutality of the world in the face of a man’s lifelong toilsome work of art changed my view of my own life and what God desired of me.
I read it again recently after having read it in 1970. It was just another work of a writer with an impoverished imagination, dreaming of apocalypses. There were so many of these in the 50s, but more sprung up over the next decades, implanting the most awful ideas, of negation, destruction, anti-civilization, that it should be no surprise to anyone, as it isn’t to me, that the world they believed forthcoming in their miserable imaginations have come true for them and those who bought into their fatal fantasies. And it does not complete itself. It can’t, because there is no resolution possible other than the awfulness the author posits for all of its characters.
I can't make any sense of this comment. In its weird way it reminds me of something The Chamber of Commerce might come up with: We have a great business climate! Let's not wreck it!
Isn't it likelier that the creators of the various literary dystopias, from Flannery O'Connor to Philip K. Dick, sensed something coming rather than implanting in readers' minds that it must come?
Terrific review, and a reminder to myself to reread the book. It's a curious blend of optimism and pessimism, in that it shows human history as a cyclical series of disasters, while depicting one institution (the Catholic Church) as able to survive it all. Why Miller came to such a sad end, and never wrote anything else of lasting value, are questions worth pondering.
Thanks for your insightful, clear, and concise review. Miller's book did assist in pushing me across the Tiber, though I have recrossed since but have remained in a liturgical tradition instead of an evangelical / fundamentalist one. I think only the liturgical will last. I think frequently of the scene of the mother and child in the third part of the book in confronting pain in my own life or the life of those near to me.
Am currently on holiday but am itching to get home and get my copy off the shelf! Thank you for bringing so much more detail than I had previously known about Walter M Miller.
How very odd that you should review this book just as it appeared in another thread about my most recent essay. Perhaps the Lord is telling me something.
An excellent review! I first read Canticle while in high school years ago, but when I read it again last year, it felt completely fresh, with so much that still speaks to our time. One of my favorite passages was from the third novella, when Abott Zerchi sees a statue of Christ that looks as if it’s been shaped to reflect modern sensibilities, based on the use of psychological principles and Big Data. I quote it below in full for anybody who hasn’t read it yet (no spoilers here):
“He glanced at the statue which the camp workers had erected near the gate. It caused a wince. He recognized it as one of the composite human images derived from mass psychological testing in which subjects were given sketches and photographs of unknown people and asked such questions as: ‘Which would you most like to meet?’ and ‘Which do you think would make the best parent?’ or ‘Which would you want to avoid?’ or ‘Which do you think is the criminal?’ From the photographs selected as the ‘most’ or the ‘least’ in terms of the questions, a series of ‘average faces,’ each to evoke a first-glance personality judgment had been constructed by computer from the mass test results.
This statue, Zerchi was dismayed to notice, bore a marked similarity to some of the most effeminate images by which mediocre, or worse than mediocre, artists had traditionally misrepresented the personality of Christ. The sweet-sick face, blank eyes, simpering lips, and arms spread wide in a gesture of embrace. The hips were broad as a woman’s, and the chest hinted at breasts—unless those were only folds in the cloak. Dear Lord of Golgotha, Abbot Zerchi breathed, is that all the rabble imagine You to be? He could with effort imagine the statue saying: ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me,’ but he could not imagine it saying: ‘Depart from me into everlasting fire, accursed ones,’ or flogging the moneychangers out of the Temple. What question, he wondered, had they asked their subjects that conjured in the rabble-mind this composite face? It was only anonymously a christus. The legend on the pedestal said: COMFORT. But surely the Green Star must have seen the resemblance to the traditional pretty christus of poor artists. But they stuck it in the back of a truck with a red flag tied to its great toe, and the intended resemblance would be hard to prove.”
Wow, I'd totally forgotten about that passage. Now I need to reread it!
This is one of the best book reviews I have read this year! Bethel, you have a marvelous way of weaving biography and fiction to reveal the underlying tapestry of the story. This book was one of my birthday wishes last year as it had been recommended to me by so many friends, and it inspired a post that my husband and I wrote together on "booklegging" and building book monasteries (https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/a-guide-to-booklegging-how-and-why). The details you provided about Miller's life stunned me, and I'll be rereading sections of the book in a new light. I'll be sure to follow your future writing in other publications as well!
That's so kind. Blessings on all your booklegging!
This is a book I keep thinking of so often. Thank you for this wonderful book review. So much I didn’t know about before! A few years ago I was assembling a bookshelf and looked for something to listen to while working. I found this: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxd6PETfVbGfsH0HsSR4yfbfOV3rsjXKg&feature=shared
That's a good drama! I should have mentioned it in this review!
I had never read this book until this year and it’s one of my top reads of the year now. Such a powerful story, and such a great review of it!
Thanks so much Hannah!
What a beautiful review, Bethel. I am wowed by your lovely writing. And I'm also reaching for my copy of "Canticle" to start rereading it immediately.
That's very kind. We love to hear this is inspiring rereads!
Thanks for reminding me about this wonderful book. I will have to re-read it once I get back from my summer home and back to my main library.
Thanks for a beautiful distillation of what makes this book at once beautiful, disturbing, and alive. The scenes narrating the unfeeling brutality of the world in the face of a man’s lifelong toilsome work of art changed my view of my own life and what God desired of me.
I don't know this book at all, but your words mean I am going to seek it out.
One of my all time favorite books!
I read it again recently after having read it in 1970. It was just another work of a writer with an impoverished imagination, dreaming of apocalypses. There were so many of these in the 50s, but more sprung up over the next decades, implanting the most awful ideas, of negation, destruction, anti-civilization, that it should be no surprise to anyone, as it isn’t to me, that the world they believed forthcoming in their miserable imaginations have come true for them and those who bought into their fatal fantasies. And it does not complete itself. It can’t, because there is no resolution possible other than the awfulness the author posits for all of its characters.
I can't make any sense of this comment. In its weird way it reminds me of something The Chamber of Commerce might come up with: We have a great business climate! Let's not wreck it!
Isn't it likelier that the creators of the various literary dystopias, from Flannery O'Connor to Philip K. Dick, sensed something coming rather than implanting in readers' minds that it must come?
Parts 1 and 2
https://open.substack.com/pub/birthofvenus/p/be-careful-what-you-wish-for-part-2eb?r=e6s49&utm_medium=ios
https://open.substack.com/pub/birthofvenus/p/be-careful-what-you-wish-for-part?r=e6s49&utm_medium=ios
I came late to this book - I loved it and plan to re-read, probably many times. Thanks for the loving words
Terrific review, and a reminder to myself to reread the book. It's a curious blend of optimism and pessimism, in that it shows human history as a cyclical series of disasters, while depicting one institution (the Catholic Church) as able to survive it all. Why Miller came to such a sad end, and never wrote anything else of lasting value, are questions worth pondering.
Thanks for your insightful, clear, and concise review. Miller's book did assist in pushing me across the Tiber, though I have recrossed since but have remained in a liturgical tradition instead of an evangelical / fundamentalist one. I think only the liturgical will last. I think frequently of the scene of the mother and child in the third part of the book in confronting pain in my own life or the life of those near to me.
Couldn't put down the review, which is saying something. And I'm now looking forward to reading the book. Thanks!
Thanks so much, Lucy!
Am currently on holiday but am itching to get home and get my copy off the shelf! Thank you for bringing so much more detail than I had previously known about Walter M Miller.
You're very welcome! Happy rereading!
How very odd that you should review this book just as it appeared in another thread about my most recent essay. Perhaps the Lord is telling me something.