Thomas Merton
Slavick, William H.
It is important to look at these poems plement to Mott's in examining how of contemplation; in the misuse and not so much within the body of Merton's Merton worked out in his...
...the prose can Feher and Heller's objective is to entering Gethsemani...
...the books to be read...
...he tain are indicative of Kramer's method...
...Merton's course as he moves from book DOOMSDAY OR DETERRENCE...
...M. E. Sharpe, $12.95, probation of his fellow monks...
...Rather, Kramer charts was beloved by his community...
...in the misuse and not so much within the body of Merton's Merton worked out in his writing, his abuse of language all around us...
...ment's contribution to these goals has Bangkok) he had resolved the question of The pages given Seven Storey Moun- been mixed...
...world, one can find meaning only in the even those few hours...
...storytelling talent, his gradual unfolding But the vast bulk of the argument foof his life, the continuing air of anticipa- cuses on the flaws of the European wing tion, and his success in encouraging of the movement...
...Merton the as if we were on the brink of a global In focusing on Merton's life and his writer has passed into the cloister, and his nuclear war...
...Into this gap came the young nurse Merton continued developing as a poet to the perspective of a democratic socialist M. the end, becoming more experimental, politics dedicated to the maintenance of Before he left for the Far East in 1968, and how his prose mellows, recognizes life and the enhancement of freedom...
...poetry - but in the context of what was their essential relationship...
...movement has raised legitimate critiknew his true calling...
...They also think that its critique of chronicle of those golden days in the au- ceipt of grace - in unforeseen ways...
...evidence of knowing how the transition vocation - as a writer, the calling he had Kramer's studies of Elizabeth Madox from the present Cold War to its vision of confidently answered as a layman and Roberts (from the adjacent Kentucky perpetual peace would be managed...
...every chance to be one...
...Victor A. dotal, ironic, and amusing: the reader is sufficiently realistic about Soviet aims...
...He had wanted to Thomas Merton does not attempt a mystery of an encounter with God at the be a hermit and they wanted to afford him thorough analysis of 40-odd volumes and center of one's being...
...Hall, $17.95, 181 pp...
...They contend that Euromyriad connections, Monica Furlong careful account ranges from the formal pean antinuclearists have been excesand Michael Mott treat his books as language of contemplation to the anec- sively critical of American policy and not milestones on the way...
...This has already been seen, they Commonweal: 604...
...Here," From book to book, Kramer notes, the otherwise occurring in his life...
...he was in constant more readily speak for itself...
...and in other poems - for the insights they pro- testing ground, his understanding of con- the contribution of language - and writvide into the man are far more important templation and his responsibility to the ing' - to his own intellectual and than how they measure up as good or bad sick world beyond the cloister - and spiritual growth...
...pursued steadily during his twenty-seven county), Carolyn Gordon, James Agee, Feher and Heller believe that all these years as a monk, including fourteen as and Walker Percy anticipate his particu- tendencies reflect a pervasive defeatism master of students or of novices...
...They represent a tribute book's singular fame among twentieth- tant contribution to a politics that limits to a young woman he loved desperately century religious autobiographies the possibility of nuclear war and permits and add still another cubit to his continu- Kramer sees as deriving from Merton's democratic control of technology...
...on what would be his last journey (to die the complexity of things, deepens in They believe that the antinuclear moveof an accidental electrocution in compassion...
...ally growing stature...
...Thomas Merton best through his writ- mass society, his effort to go it alone, When he did go to the monastery for ing," he explains, so that "here we have fearfully guarding hiding places from meals or to say Mass, other monks did an interior biography," as he finds God and himself...
...Kramer's briefer study, unnoticed in the reassured that the monastery is not Further, the movement has given little wake of Mott's, assesses Merton's other another world altogether...
...They acknowledge that the M. He would not leave the Trappists...
...Abbott Flavian Burns, Merton's one- root problem for Merton is modern man's In 1966, he had spent a year as a her- time student then abbot, has observed, malaise - his absorption in economic mit, relishing the freedom it afforded, "is the Merton I knew...
...The industrial civilization could be an importumn of his life...
...You can know individualism and the materialism of but also tasting profound loneliness...
...tone of near amazement that everything "absolutely no reason to feel and behave G.K...
...The poetry gets 154 pp...
...He felt more alone than he had since relatively more attention...
...In a lonely and troubled their best not to welcome him back for Mott's is not...
...This was not numerous essays or an analysis of Mer- WILLIAM H. SLAVICK done out of spite or jealousy, for Merton ton's spirituality...
...These poems, with Merton locates himself in Dante's Pur- cisms of President Reagan's irresponsino apology to his order, his enormous gatorio, carefully organizing his earlier ble management of Soviet-American republic or his searching soul, serve as a life in the frame of the need for and re- lations...
...lar attention to Merton's interest in the that works to the advantage of the Soviet Kramer's book is the necessary com- limits of language, especially in writing Union...
...ON THE plainly missed some aspects of commu- to book, identifying new interests and ANTINUCLEAR ISSUE, by Ferenc Feher nity life, the support, friendship, and ap- directions and qualities of style, leaving and Agnes Heller...
...We see how analyze the antinuclear movement from pain...
...The authors maintain In brief others in their spiritual quest through his that the activists' use of fear has fostered account of his own - partly through "a a "Sarajevo mentality" when there is THOMAS MERTON, by VictorA Kramer...
...is finally working out...
Vol. 113 • November 1986 • No. 19
