Tag: The Seven Storey Mountain

The Seven Storey Mountain (1948) is the best-selling autobiography of the American Trappist monk Thomas Merton. The book charts his early life, intellectual pursuits, and sudden conversion to Catholicism, culminating in his entry into a monastery in Kentucky. It provides a detailed account of his inner transformation, his search for spiritual peace, and the realities of 20th-century monastic life.

by on

I recently finished re-reading Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain, one of my favourite books. Now, I am dipping into the multi-volume edition of his letters. All of the books are secondhand copies, and I am sure that some of them have their own stories to tell. My copy of the first volume once sat on the shelves of a branch of The New York Public Library at 455 Fifth Avenue in Mid-Manhattan.

The letters are collected according to theme. There’s a volume of correspondence covering Merton‘s close friendships; there’s one devoted to poetry, literature, and the vocation of writing; and yet another two that deal with religious experience. The fifth and final volume collects together his letters on “Times of Crisis”. I think I might start with that one.

by on

Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton’s hermitage

Autobiography is always negotiating two or more voices, speaking from separate and distinct moments in time. We can see this in what is perhaps the earliest example of modern autobiography, St Augustine‘s Confessions, where a present-day narrator attempts to reconstruct a previous life. In this way, autobiographical writing attempts to collapse the distance between childhood and adulthood, innocence and experience, and past and present.  (more…)