Thomas Merton - Seven Storey Mountain

erika

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I've started reading Merton this month. His writing is beautiful in parts, but I'm finding this Christian classic a tad slow right now. Any thoughts?
 

Jenny

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I bought it secondhand and found the same thing. In fact, it's sitting unread on the shelf.
 

erika

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It's almost shameful. I hate it when you think you should be completely enamored with book, then you're not and you assume it's your own fault for not being as erudite as the author.
 

Jenny

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I just tell myself that fashions change. For instance, Charles Dickens. I can't stand him! Too many words!!! Some people reckon that with the Internet people are now taking their info in in bytes - small snippets. So these long involved sentences and page long paragraphs just don't work for us any more. Not sure about that one, but I agree that it's a huge disappointment when you anticipate reading a classic and find it, well, tedious.
 

Jenny

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Inspired by nomescreed I tried. I read the first section - childhood and wasted chance at Cambridge - and ya know - I just don't like the guy. I could go on about it, all the reasons and writing style and prejudices, but I'll just say the book didn't work for me, which it didn't.
 

erika

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I'll take Nomescreed up on the challenge and give it one more go, but I'm leaning towards Jenny's POV here. Not because I detest the man, but because I feel confident his childhood could've been surmised in under 100 words.

I could write a book on my life and it'd come as a boring, self-indulgent praise (or whine)-a-thon. In any case, it would suck. Which is why I'm working on the project right now. (that was a joke by the way)
 

Pat~

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Thomas Merton....I didn't make it all the way through his Seven Storey Mountain, but some of his smaller books I've enjoyed. In fact, I first discovered him when I stumbled upon his book Thoughts in Solitude. I was deep in a clinical depression at the time, and the title seemed appropriate. I liked that one, and reading it got me started on reading the Christian mystics, so for that I owe him a big debt of gratitude. I've enjoyed parts of some of his books--New Seeds of Contemplation, and a couple of his books on prayer are also pretty good. After awhile his long-winded style started to bother me, though, and I've not read him recently.

Interesting tidbit; I was in counseling at the time, and my counselor told me that he has been considered the unofficial patron of Alcoholics Anonymous, so many of them read him.
 

Ralyks

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Huh. I actually found this to be a rather easy read, length not withstanding. I found his style and content both interesting. I usually dislike devotional literature because I find it so...inspid(?). But this was a good read for me. (And I'm a Protestant...so I even made it through his anti-Protestant jibes well.)
 

erika

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ZEN AND THE BIRDS OF APPETITE

I'm doing a one-eighty on Merton after vacation. I read "Zen and The Birds of Appetite" and believe the man is a theological genius. That book has completely changed my mindset and could be my only salvation. To view Christianity through a Buddhist lens is to see Christianity more clearly. Damn, he's right.

Erika
 

Ralyks

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erika said:
I'm doing a one-eighty on Merton after vacation. I read "Zen and The Birds of Appetite" and believe the man is a theological genius. That book has completely changed my mindset and could be my only salvation. To view Christianity through a Buddhist lens is to see Christianity more clearly. Damn, he's right.

Erika

You might like another book (I forget the author) called Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit.

I'll have to read "Zen and The Birds of Appetite".
 

erika

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Hmmm... Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit. Is this a recent book? I find this Zen/Christian angle very calming. It also has me reevaluating my writing goals. It seems from a purely Zen and Christian sense, the quest for publication is an attempt to glorify the self? Does anyone else agree?
 

clresu

The book Mystics & Zen Masters, mentioned earlier, is good, discusses existentialism. I remember reading this (and several others by him 8,9 years ago and enjoying it, thinking that (a the time) I liked his application of existentialism. He goes into Kierkegard (a Christian existentialist philosopher) and others.

But I disagree with nomescreed202 - I believe he was sincerely living a life of contemplation, searching, too, regardless of one's thoughts on Christianity, Cathlocism, etc. (He was living a very simple life of quiet. Surely, for the most part, his spirit was evolving faster than ours on the interstate.) And thus, he stumbled on Thich Nhat Hahn and the likes, who he said he had more in common with than most Christians. I don't belong to a religion, but an obvious line that's drawn that can at least make one tolerant of a religion, is whether or not they condemn other religions. Merton was happy after the (big Catholic 'decide what's right and wrong' - diocese?) meeting in the 40s that announced a new stance towards other religions - one of tolerance.

And Erika, no. The quest for publication isn't any more an attempt to glorify the self than 'I'm not going to publish because it's vain self-glorification.' The ego equally strengthens itself with the latter stance.