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The Seven Storey Mountain, by Thomas Merton
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A modern-day Confessions of Saint Augustine, The Seven Storey Mountain is one of the most influential religious works of the twentieth century. This edition contains an introduction by Merton's editor, Robert Giroux, and a note to the reader by biographer William H. Shannon. It tells of the growing restlessness of a brilliant and passionate young man whose search for peace and faith leads him, at the age of twenty-six, to take vows in one of the most demanding Catholic orders--the Trappist monks. At the Abbey of Gethsemani, "the four walls of my new freedom," Thomas Merton struggles to withdraw from the world, but only after he has fully immersed himself in it. The Seven Storey Mountain has been a favorite of readers ranging from Graham Greene to Claire Booth Luce, Eldridge Cleaver, and Frank McCourt. Since its original publication this timeless spiritual tome has been published in over twenty languages and has touched millions of lives.
- Sales Rank: #8979 in Books
- Color: Other
- Published on: 1999-10-04
- Released on: 1999-10-04
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x 1.23" w x 5.31" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 496 pages
Features
Amazon.com Review
In 1941, a brilliant, good-looking young man decided to give up a promising literary career in New York to enter a monastery in Kentucky, from where he proceeded to become one of the most influential writers of this century. Talk about losing your life in order to find it. Thomas Merton's first book, The Seven Storey Mountain, describes his early doubts, his conversion to a Catholic faith of extreme certainty, and his decision to take life vows as a Trappist. Although his conversionary piety sometimes falls into sticky-sweet abstractions, Merton's autobiographical reflections are mostly wise, humble, and concrete. The best reason to read The Seven Storey Mountain, however, may be the one Merton provided in his introduction to its Japanese translation: "I seek to speak to you, in some way, as your own self. Who can tell what this may mean? I myself do not know, but if you listen, things will be said that are perhaps not written in this book. And this will be due not to me but to the One who lives and speaks in both." --Michael Joseph Gross
From Library Journal
Harcourt is pulling out all the stops for this 50th-anniversary edition of Merton's spiritual masterpiece. In addition to the full text, this enhanced version includes an introduction by Merton's editor, Robert Giroux, and a reader's note by biographer and Thomas Merton Society founder Fr. William Shannon. The book comes with a cloth binding and a ribbon marker. Merton's faithful fans will be in seventh heaven over this glorious edition.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
Without a life of the spirit our whole existence becomes unsubstantial and illusory.-Thomas Merton
Most helpful customer reviews
69 of 72 people found the following review helpful.
The Monk Judging the Man
By Lord Galderon
At the beginning of A Seven Storey Mountain, there is "A Note to the Reader," written by William H. Shannon, Founding President of the International Thomas Merton Society. There is a quote from this note which I believe sums up the book:
"The Seven Storey Mountain, I believe it can be said, is the story of a young man named Thomas Merton being judged by a monk named Father Louis."
Father Louis of course, is the name Merton was given when he was accepted into the monastery.
While reading the book, I always felt as if Thomas Merton the monk was suppressing the life events of Thomas Merton the man. You have to understand that this book was written by a monk and censured by monks. There are many details that were omitted, namely Merton's fathering of an illegitimate child and details of his college years. While I understand why these things were omitted, it can be confusing to the reader why Merton was so wracked with guilt and tortured by his existence. The material in the book suggests he was an above average intellect who drank, partied and engaged in the social norms of any college student. I couldn't help but feeling that Merton was walking on eggshells while writing this story. That his life was very much like that of Kerouac and the beats; wild, drunken, exciting and full of debauchery, but here in the Seven Storey Mountain, all of that was censored and molded into a very tame and at times a very dull account.
I would love to read an uncensored version of The Seven Storey Mountain, although I know that will never happen. The gritty details of Merton's life are important because I feel it would better show the incredible contrast and transformation from the sinner to the saint. As is, it comes across as a very pedestrian tale of an average man who becomes an incredible spiritual thinker and writer. This in itself is still incredible, but not as impactful as a story.
The parts I loved the most were Merton's deep insight into the spiritual connection with God, and I feel there wasn't enough of that. I love his book Thoughts in Solitude, and there are moments in this book that remind me of that, but not enough. It is mostly a linear account of his life, which as I've stated before, is heavily censored and watered down. Honestly, it is a very hard book to get through because it can be very dull.
I would recommend you read all or most of Merton's spiritual works and if you want to know more about him, read this last.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
A Spiritual Conversion
By Herta Feely
I was captivated by the story of Thomas Merton's life and his conversion to Catholicism. I'd heard of this book for quite some time, but never really knew what it was about other than someone's spiritual journey, and that's what this is. How a man with an unusual childhood (his mother died when he was young, and his artist father took him to France to live for quite some time, then he attended university in England, eventually returning to the US, where he studied at Columbia, aspiring to be a writer) suddenly in his early 20s develops a hunger for the spiritual life. And though he chose to become a Catholic monk, a path filled with obstacles, if he'd been born in another country, I could just as easily imagine him having become a Buddhist monk. This for me was at the heart of his story. He had a spiritual conversion, not just a Catholic or Christian one. His description of and longing for communion with God brought me closer to the same. His words transported and inspired me. He was an unusual man, destined to write about his experience when in fact, at least initially, all he wanted was the silence required by his order of Trappists. He went on to write many other books, some of which I have yet to read. Definitely recommend it, both for those who enjoy a good autobiography and those interested in the spiritual life.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
The bent of my mind was essentially "Augustinian."
By Peter Dubbelman
Thomas Merton writes well and he's my brother in Christ; further, his writings inform and stir my passion to come alongside other people's spiritual journey in hopes of seeing them further immersed into the life of God (cf. Acts 8:26-40); however, this book isn't for everyone, and, if you're within Protestant Christianity there will be isolated mentions of Catholicism that you'll need to wrestle through; after all, there are real differences in how Protestants and Catholics articulate the gospel and how their churches construct that understanding.
Merton confesses, "The bent of my mind was essentially `Augustinian.'" (241) Therefore, we shouldn't be surprised that his autobiography is a modern day version of Augustine's Confessions, albeit with a Roman Catholic, pre-Vatican II, monastic flavoring. The book covers his life from childhood to priesthood, highlighting his struggles with surrendering both to Christ and becoming a Trappist Monk.
My take away quotes:
1. The persons most influential in his conversion: Merton and his father occasionally rented a room from the Privats: "They were to be among the most remarkable people I ever knew ... Full of that peacefulness ... which ... came from living close to God ... Sanctified by leading ordinary lives in a completely supernatural manner, sanctified by obscurity, by usual skills, by common tasks, by routine, but skills, tasks, routine which received a supernatural form from grace within, and from the habitual union of their souls with God in deep faith and charity ... I am indebted to them for much more than the kindness and care they showed me, the goodness and the delicate solicitude with which they treated me as their own child ... I had never met people to whom belief was a matter of such moment ... They were concerned, and so deeply and vitally concerned, at my lack of faith ... I owe many graces to their prayers, and perhaps ultimately the grace of my conversion and even my religious vocation." (61-65)
2. The method of his conversion: "But for me, with my blind appetites, it was impossible that I should not rush in and take a huge bite of this rotten fruit. The bitter taste is still with me after not a few years." "[I had] walked out into the world that I thought I was going to ransack and rob of all its pleasures and satisfactions. I had done what I intended, and now I found that it was I who was emptied and robbed and gutted. What a strange thing! In filling myself, I had emptied myself. In grasping things, I had lost everything. In devouring pleasures and joys, I had found distress and anguish and fear ... When I was reduced to this extremity of misery and humiliation, I fell into a love affair in which I was at last treated in the way I had treated not a few people in these last years ... And it was my defeat that was to be the occasion of my rescue." "My ploughed soul was better ground for the reception of good seed." (131, 181-82, 230)
3. Merton's struggle about his vocation, which went on for the entire book: "Did I not know that I really had no vocation [i.e. a call to the priesthood] ... it was the same old story again." Further down the page: "Perhaps what I wanted was to maintain myself in an equivocal, indefinite position in which I would be free to dream about entering the monastery, without having the actual responsibility of doing so, and of embracing the real hardship of a certain Cistercian life. If I asked advice and was told I had no vocation, then the dream would be over: and if I was told I had a vocation, that I would have to walk right in to the reality ... And so I walked ... full of indecision, praying for light."
4. His comments against the argument that a good God cannot exist given the plague of evil (142) and about "Why should anyone be shattered by the thought of hell?" (238) are worth being read.
5. "The beginning of love is truth, and before He will give us His love, God must cleanse our souls of the lies that are in them. And the most effective way of detaching us from ourselves is to make us detest ourselves as we have made ourselves by sin." (409)
6. "One of the most important aspects of any religious vocation ... is the willingness to accept life in a community in which everybody is more or less imperfect." (419)
7. "All my bad habits, disinfected, it is true, of formal sin, had sneaked into the monastery with me and had received the religious vesture along with me: spiritual gluttony, spiritual sensuality, spiritual pride..." (426)
8. Merton's struggle about his vocation, which went on for the entire book: "Did I not know that I really had no vocation [i.e. a call to the priesthood] ... it was the same old story again." Further down the page: "Perhaps what I wanted was to maintain myself in an equivocal, indefinite position in which I would be free to dream about entering the monastery, without having the actual responsibility of doing so, and of embracing the real hardship of a certain Cistercian life. If I asked advice and was told I had no vocation, then the dream would be over: and if I was told I had a vocation, that I would have to walk right in to the reality ... And so I walked ... full of indecision, praying for light."
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