The Seven Storey Mountain: Fiftieth-Anniversary Edition – October 4, 1998

The Seven Storey Mountain: Fiftieth-Anniversary Edition Hardcover – October 4, 1998
Author: Visit ‘s Thomas Merton Page ID: 0151004137

.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.

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Hardcover: 467 pagesPublisher: Harcourt Brace; 50th Anniversary edition (October 4, 1998)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 0151004137ISBN-13: 978-0151004133 Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.2 x 9 inches Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies) Best Sellers Rank: #221,984 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #1517 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Leaders & Notable People > Religious #1687 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Worship & Devotion > Inspirational #2121 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Catholicism
Today I delivered a gift copy of this book to a widow, "Grace" whose husband had been my late father’s closest childhood friend. A week earlier, Grace had asked: "Have you ever read Thomas Merton’s SEVEN STOREY MOUNTAIN? I read it in 1953; and found it very moving. I’d love to find a copy and read it again."

When I presented her with a new copy of this edition, I asked if I could read aloud my favorite passage (early in the book) concerning Thomas Merton’s `little brother’ John Paul (five years younger) who, like his older brother was a French-born, American citizen.

Late in the book Thomas Merton tells us how John Paul was compelled early in WWII to join the Royal Canadian Air Force (and trained right here in Manitoba! John Paul Merton had been flying bombing runs over a real sandy desert on the prairie just outside nearby Camp Shilo, where today’s Canadian Artillery Officers still train. My late father was flown at Canadian Army expense each year, late in life, to address the graduating officers at that camp: Small world!)

Just before leaving for overseas, John Paul flew to see his older brother Thomas and, not incidentally, be Baptized, and welcomed into the Catholic faith. Then he left for England (and was killed in action the next year, when his RAF bomber went down over the English Channel).

His death provides the moving culmination to this book – bringing the reader `full circle’ from the moment (back on page 25) when Thomas Merton introduces us to John Paul. (What follows is the passage that moves me to tears when I read it aloud to a friend.
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