This section of Walter M. Miller’s novel spans two sections, so in this week’s episode we discussed the tightrope walk that is abandoning one now-beloved character in the middle of a book and asking readers to grasp onto a completely new set of characters. Plus: How to think about the time jumps, the differences between the protagonists we are given, and the many subtleties of this work. Happy listening!
I would like to back Sean’s suggested focus point of the novel. Keeping the work of the Order in focus definitely helps with the jumps in time and maintaining understanding throughout the work. It is about a task that is bigger than any one character of the novel. Great conversation!
One small detail I noticed that links the two sections: the fly on the statue of Saint Liebowitz in the abbot's study echoes the fly landing on the nose of the guard in the church at New Rome before the canonization.
I loved the humor in Brother Francis thinking the guards in mail are statues until a fly crawls into a visor:
"A captain of the guard was making a stately tour of his men. for the first time, the statue moved. It lifted its visor in salute. The captain thoughtfully paused and used his kerchief to brush the horsefly from the forehead of the expressionless face inside the helmet before passing on. The statue lowered its visor and resumed its immobility."
And then there's the other fly, on a real statue this time:
"A fly was crawling along Saint Leibowitz's nose. The eyes of the saint seemed to be looking crosseyed at the fly, urging the abbot to brush it away. The abbot had grown fond of the twenty-sixth century wood carving; its face wore a curious smile of a sort that made it rather unusual as a sacramental image." And this leads to the abbots musing about the construction of the statue, whether it was made from a living tree that had been tortured into shape, how it survived his many predecessors.
And of course we saw this statue while it was being carved in Brother Francis' time.
What is Miller doing with the two different "statues" with flies? Is it just a bit of wry humor or is it doing something more? Does it have to do with the hidden message the abbot keeps trying to make out between the lines of the letter, the thing he almost remembers but not quite?
It reminded me of one of the times I visited the mission of St. Xavier del Bac outside Tucson when I was a kid. It was a blazing hot summer day, and the Tohono O’odham Native Americans were selling Indian Fry Bread out in the parking lot. (If you ever get the chance to eat authentic, hot Indian Fry bread made the old fashioned way, it is a treat not to be missed, but I digress.) Inside the mission itself, it was surprisingly comfortable with a breeze bouncing off the colorfully decorated, cool adobe walls. As my mother and I knelt before the Virgin in the Lady Chapel while she lit a candle and prayed for my grandfather who had died earlier in the month far away in Pennsylvania, I couldn’t help but swat at the flies that had come in through the open doors and that were swarming around my face. My mother scolded me for not focusing on my prayers and ignoring them, and I was amazed that she could kneel there, completely unmindful as I watched them land on her face and hands. The point being that like me, Brother Francis is in a sacred place and that is meant to focus the mind on a higher plane, but worldly distraction will always prove to be a temptation for most of us. IMO, that is the point of the fly.
I like this. The fly as a symbol for worldly distraction that pulls Brother Francis away from prayer. Does that mean the guard is somehow holier than Brother Francis for being able to endure the fly? Or just better trained? And is the fly doing the same thing for the abbot in the second part of the novel when he wants to brush it off the face of the statue of Saint Leibowitz? Does it just show us he's distracted? I somehow feel that is on the right track, but there's something more going on too-- another layer of meaning.
I think of the guard as being more disciplined rather than more holy. In the second part of the novel, I think the fly is a reminder that even though they have canonized Liebowitz, he was actually an engineer at Los Alamos and likely bears some responsibility for nuclear proliferation in the former US. I suspect the fly is functioning a distraction from the spiritual plane for the abbot, but I would love to hear if anyone else has some alternative ideas on the role of the fly.
Ok, can’t wait to listen. I found his imagery at the end of part one to be interesting in light of the overall story. Why buzzards? Just because of being in the desert? Or could it be because the author is acknowledging that even in the aftermath of a cataclysm death is the servant of life?
I would like to back Sean’s suggested focus point of the novel. Keeping the work of the Order in focus definitely helps with the jumps in time and maintaining understanding throughout the work. It is about a task that is bigger than any one character of the novel. Great conversation!
One small detail I noticed that links the two sections: the fly on the statue of Saint Liebowitz in the abbot's study echoes the fly landing on the nose of the guard in the church at New Rome before the canonization.
I loved the humor in Brother Francis thinking the guards in mail are statues until a fly crawls into a visor:
"A captain of the guard was making a stately tour of his men. for the first time, the statue moved. It lifted its visor in salute. The captain thoughtfully paused and used his kerchief to brush the horsefly from the forehead of the expressionless face inside the helmet before passing on. The statue lowered its visor and resumed its immobility."
And then there's the other fly, on a real statue this time:
"A fly was crawling along Saint Leibowitz's nose. The eyes of the saint seemed to be looking crosseyed at the fly, urging the abbot to brush it away. The abbot had grown fond of the twenty-sixth century wood carving; its face wore a curious smile of a sort that made it rather unusual as a sacramental image." And this leads to the abbots musing about the construction of the statue, whether it was made from a living tree that had been tortured into shape, how it survived his many predecessors.
And of course we saw this statue while it was being carved in Brother Francis' time.
What is Miller doing with the two different "statues" with flies? Is it just a bit of wry humor or is it doing something more? Does it have to do with the hidden message the abbot keeps trying to make out between the lines of the letter, the thing he almost remembers but not quite?
It reminded me of one of the times I visited the mission of St. Xavier del Bac outside Tucson when I was a kid. It was a blazing hot summer day, and the Tohono O’odham Native Americans were selling Indian Fry Bread out in the parking lot. (If you ever get the chance to eat authentic, hot Indian Fry bread made the old fashioned way, it is a treat not to be missed, but I digress.) Inside the mission itself, it was surprisingly comfortable with a breeze bouncing off the colorfully decorated, cool adobe walls. As my mother and I knelt before the Virgin in the Lady Chapel while she lit a candle and prayed for my grandfather who had died earlier in the month far away in Pennsylvania, I couldn’t help but swat at the flies that had come in through the open doors and that were swarming around my face. My mother scolded me for not focusing on my prayers and ignoring them, and I was amazed that she could kneel there, completely unmindful as I watched them land on her face and hands. The point being that like me, Brother Francis is in a sacred place and that is meant to focus the mind on a higher plane, but worldly distraction will always prove to be a temptation for most of us. IMO, that is the point of the fly.
I like this. The fly as a symbol for worldly distraction that pulls Brother Francis away from prayer. Does that mean the guard is somehow holier than Brother Francis for being able to endure the fly? Or just better trained? And is the fly doing the same thing for the abbot in the second part of the novel when he wants to brush it off the face of the statue of Saint Leibowitz? Does it just show us he's distracted? I somehow feel that is on the right track, but there's something more going on too-- another layer of meaning.
I think of the guard as being more disciplined rather than more holy. In the second part of the novel, I think the fly is a reminder that even though they have canonized Liebowitz, he was actually an engineer at Los Alamos and likely bears some responsibility for nuclear proliferation in the former US. I suspect the fly is functioning a distraction from the spiritual plane for the abbot, but I would love to hear if anyone else has some alternative ideas on the role of the fly.
Ok, can’t wait to listen. I found his imagery at the end of part one to be interesting in light of the overall story. Why buzzards? Just because of being in the desert? Or could it be because the author is acknowledging that even in the aftermath of a cataclysm death is the servant of life?
Ooo it came out here before it got pushed to my podcast app! How interesting! Usually I get the podcasts in the two apps at the same time haha!