Echoing Silence

Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing

By: Thomas Merton

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Paperback | 13 January 2007 | Edition Number 1

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240 Pages

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21.4 x 14.1 x 1.6

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When Thomas Merton entered a Trappist monastery in December 1941, he turned his back on secular life—including a very promising literary career. He sent his journals, a novel-in-progess, and copies of all his poems to his mentor, Columbia professor Mark Van Doren, for safe keeping, fully expecting to write little, if anything, ever again. It was a relatively short-lived resolution, for Merton almost immediately found himself being assigned writing tasks by his Abbot—one of which was the autobiographical essay that blossomed into his international best-seller The Seven Storey Mountain. That book made him famous overnight, and for a time he struggled with the notion that the vocation of the monk and the vocation of the writer were incompatible. Monasticism called for complete surrender to the absolute, whereas writing demanded a tactical withdrawal from experience in order to record it. He eventually came to accept his dual vocation as two sides of the same spiritual coin and used it as a source of creative tension the rest of his life.

Merton’s thoughts on writing have never been compiled into a single volume until now. Robert Inchausti has mined the vast Merton literature to discover what he had to say on a whole spectrum of literary topics, including writing as a spiritual calling, the role of the Christian writer in a secular society, the joys and mysteries of poetry, and evaluations of his own literary work. Also included are fascinating glimpses of his take on a range of other writers, including Henry David Thoreau, Flannery O’Connor, Dylan Thomas, Albert Camus, James Joyce, and even Henry Miller, along with many others.

Industry Reviews

"'For me to be a saint means to be myself, ' wrote Thomas Merton. And for Merton, to be himself meant being not only a monk, but a writer as well. Few contemporary writers have pondered so deeply the idea of writing as a vocation. Fewer still have meditated on the complex interplay between writing and faith. In this marvelous collection of excerpts from Merton's books, essays, journals, and letters, readers will discover how a vocation, if fully embraced, can lead to both joy for oneself and joy for the world."--James Martin, SJ, Associate Editor, America, author of My Life with the Saints

"Thomas Merton is one of the most widely read and influential authors of the twentieth century, yet no one was more conscious of the spiritual pitfalls that the writer may fall into or the limitations of language. Anyone drawn to the vocation of writing will be grateful to Robert Inchausti for gathering together in one volume what Merton has to say about being a writer."--Jim Forest, author of Living with Wisdom: A Biography of Thomas Merton

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Biographies & True Stories Biographies Religious & Spiritual Biographies Religion & Beliefs Christianity Christian Spirituality & Religious Experience Language & Linguistics Reference, Dictionaries & Guides Writing & Editing Guides Mind, Body, Spirit Meditation and Visualisation

Introduction	p. vii
Sources and Abbreviations	p. xi
Writing as a Spiritual Calling	p. 1
The Christian Writer in the Modern World	p. 31
On Poetry	p. 81
On Other Writers	p. 101
On His Own Writing	p. 155
Advice to Writers	p. 197
Acknowledgments	p. 211
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Echoing Silence

Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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