Conceptual Fiction: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

Conceptual Fiction is a regular feature, contributed by Ted Gioia, focusing on major works of fantasy, science fiction, magical realism and alternate history. These books are celebrated in recognition that literary experimentation with ways of conceptualizing reality has been as important as experimentation with language in creating fiction of lasting value. Dismissing these books as genre or escapist works has created a blind-spot in literary studies that this feature aims, in some small part, to rectify.

When literary critic Wyatt Mason recently ridiculed A Canticle for Leibowitz in the “Sentences” blog he runs for Harper’s, he was amazed at the heated backlash from readers. As a seasoned book blogger, Mason must be used to critics getting criticized, but the intensity of response from fans of Walter M. Miller, Jr. “took the soup,” in his words. “Readers voted early and often,” Mason explained. “I got handed my hat.”

A highbrow critic poking fun at a science fiction book is nothing new. But the story behind this story is even more unsettling. Mason dismissed A Canticle for Leibowitz on the basis of the first sentence alone! It wasn’t even clear whether he had read the whole book. (It later turned out that he hadn’t.) And this supposedly skilled reader of texts even managed to mis-interpret these few words. He misses entirely the tongue-in-cheek humor of the opening sentence, attacking novelist Miller (who he doesn’t even mention by name in his blog post—after all, who cares about some hack genre writer?) for the phrase “girded loins” which is clearly offered by the author with a wry smile.

I wonder if Mason would launch a preemptive assault on a book by Thomas Hardy or Saul Bellow on the basis of a single sentence in a novel he hasn’t read. Okay, I know that Mason calls his blog “Sentences” . . . but really! Such dismissals reveal less about the quality of sci-fi books or Miller’s novel—which is quite well written, by the way—then about the snobbishness and biases that still pervade the supposedly egalitarian and open-minded world of literary criticism. “I’m all for sci-fi,” Mason clarifies. Oh, but of course. “Or, at least, have never turned up my nose thereto,” he adds. Except, that is, when he turns up his nose at it.

Mason promises to read the rest of A Canticle for Leibowitz. But I have some doubts that he will enjoy the book even after the chastening response he received from its devoted fans, who have kept this book in print for almost a half-century. Miller offers a less than flattering portrait in his novel of Thon Taddeo, who is not exactly a literary blogger, but is close enough for discomfort. Taddeo is an intellectual who likes to make high-blown pronouncements on the basis of very few facts (does that sound familiar?). In fact, this whole novel is a plea for folks not to engage in preemptive attacks—a general category which must include, somewhere in its taxonomy, the judgment of a book by its opening sentence.

Article Author: Ted Gioia

Ted Gioia is a writer and musician. He is the author of Delta Blues, The History of Jazz and, most recently, The Birth (and Death) of the Cool.

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