Finished 1/4/2024 Rating: 3 bishops and a priest / the surviving members of the catholic church

Book is split into three seperate stories, the first is allegorical for the period after the fall of rome, the 2nd is the early enlightenment, and the last is modernity. It takes place hundreds of years after a nuclear holocaust nearly puts out the light of sciences and technology. The last folks preserving pre-war knowledge are a Catholic monastic order. The book follows this order in three distinct time periods over a thousand years or so.

It seems to argue the cyclical nature of history and humanity, and has a fairly depressing tone and a dim look on man's future. It doesn't feel like a cynical or depressing book, however. It's heavily laden with dry humor and interesting characters throughout.

The first section was probably the most cohesive and 'well done', it has a tight focus on it's subject matters and characters, but it dragged a bit for me. I didn't enjoy the characters on offer as much as the latter sections, although the plot was at it's most interesting here. It does do a good job of setting up the premise, and introduces you to the world as it was seen by the folks in the monastery. It tells you that a nuclear holocaust has happened without ever using either of those words. A little tidbit I particularly enjoyed was one of the acolytes of the order assuming fallout was some sort of scary creature. There's little breadcrumbs like this throughout and it really helps you get in the character's heads.

The 2nd part of the story looses some of that focus and tries to poorly do the geopolitics of the region, but this effort is wasted. The books focuses on the monastic as the main character and this aside doesn't really contribute to that. Those geopolitics are mildly important for world building and make the last section of the book marginally stronger, but significantly less could have been written on it and the book would have been improved. Regardless of that criticism, I found the 2nd part the most engaging. It's what made me understand why this is a SciFi classic and certified club banger. The characters it focuses on are probably the most interesting, it's humor is at it's sharpest, and it sets up a few subplots I really enjoyed. The poet behaving like an asshole during the banquet, and the debate between the scholar and the abbot was incredible. The abbot in this entire section was wonderful–accurately predicting that the order would be subsumed to irrelevance as the scientists read their preserved texts, the worry that their centuries of effort (including many of them being horribly killed) to preserve the texts treated with disdain due to them being a monastic order, and the pointed criticisms the abbot levied against the scholar over his indifference to his countries immorality and his lack of doing anything about it were all pretty sick.

Lastly there was the section about the future. Humanity has taken it's first steps into the stars with early colonies being established. The world has coalesced into two relevant global powers that are both armed with nuclear weapons, and there's a cold war on. This was probably the weakest part of the book. It dragged a bit more than I would have liked–perhaps a Catholic would have gotten more out of it than me. It does contain one of my favorite sections of the novel though. The abbot spars with a doctor and society writ large over euthanizing people. He wants to prevent this as they'll suffer eternal damnation as a result of the suicide. These folks have severe radiation poisoning and are terribly burned, the rest of their short lives will consist of torturous pain as their flesh rots. While the abbot is wrong, imo, and his point of view is disgusting, it's well argued and forces you to empathize with the religious on this matter. He doesn't win and is nearly thrown in prison over the matter; contrasting nicely against the rest of the book where the monastery is empowered.

I have complicated feelings on the thrust of it's argument though. The Church absolutely preserved and propagated knowledge after the fall of Rome. During the Enlightenment it got maligned as anti-science, which is not fair. I'm not confident that the morality that comes from the Church would prevent nuclear holocaust. Perhaps that's it's point–the Church is ineffectual holding back tsunami or horror humanity perpetually unleashes on itself. Probably one of the strongest arguments for the faith that I've read, despite it being so pessimistic about it's ability to prevent societal harm. Really pointed commentary that wisdom is as vital as knowledge in governance and technological advancement.

Contains a Wandering Jew, which is the first time I learned of the myth. Was a really great addition to the novel.

tl;dr: worth a read. You'll know within 100 pages if it's for you or not though.