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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 271.12502
EAN num: 9780156010863
ISBN number: 0156010860
Label: Harvest Books
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 496
Printing Date: October 04, 1999
Publishing house: Harvest Books
Sale Popularity Level: 3682
Studio: Harvest Books
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A modern-day Confessions of Saint Augustine, The Seven Storey Mountain is one of the most influential religious works of the twentieth century. This edition contains an introduction by Merton's editor, Robert Giroux, and a note to the reader by biographer William H. Shannon. It tells of the growing restlessness of a brilliant and passionate young man whose search for peace and faith leads him, at the age of twenty-six, to take vows in one of the most demanding Catholic orders--the Trappist monks. At the Abbey of Gethsemani, 'the four walls of my new freedom,' Thomas Merton struggles to withdraw from the world, but only after he has fully immersed himself in it. The Seven Storey Mountain has been a favorite of readers ranging from Graham Greene to Claire Booth Luce, Eldridge Cleaver, and Frank McCourt. And, in the half-century since its original publication, this timeless spiritual tome has been published in over twenty languages and has touched millions of lives.
Amazon.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 very 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
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Rated by buyers 
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this is really a life changing book and i would recommend it to anyone who searches for god regardless of which denomination they come from. Thomas Merton tells his life story warts and all in order that the reader may understand the amazing work of god's grace in his life. This book is inspiring and hopeful, a welcome change from the usual low standard of christian books in your average christian bookshop.
Rated by buyers -
This book was written over 50 years ago but is still a fresh story of a young man's faith awakening! I would recommend this book to anyone!
Rated by buyers 
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I would strongly recommend this book - especially to individuals interested in entering to individuals contemplating religious life.
Rated by buyers -
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 subsequent 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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"One thing I would say about my brother, John Paul: My most vivid memories of him, in our childhood, all fill me with poignant compunction at the thought of my own hard-heartedness, and his natural humility and love.
"I suppose it's usual for elder brothers, when they are still children, to feel themselves demeaned by the company of a brother, four or five years younger, whom they regard as a baby, and tend to patronize and look down upon.
"So when Russ and Bill and I (older brothers all) made huts in the woods out of boards and tar paper . . . we severely prohibited John Paul, and Russ' younger brother Tommy and their friends from coming anywhere near us. If they did try to come and get into our hut, or even to look at it, we would chase them away with stones.
"When I think now about that part of my childhood, the picture I get of my brother John Paul is this: standing in a field a hundred yards away from our hut, is this little perplexed five-year-old kid in short pants and a kind of leather jacket, standing quite still; his arms hanging down at his sides.
"He is gazing in our direction, afraid to come any nearer on account of the stones, as insulted as he is saddened, and his eyes full of indignation and sorrow. And yet he does not go away. We shout at him to go away, beat it, go home, and wing a couple more rocks in that direction. We tell him to play some other place. He does not move.
"And there he stands, not sobbing, not crying, but angry and unhappy and offended and tremendously sad. And yet he is fascinated by what we are doing, nailing shingles all over our new hut. And his tremendous desire to be with us and to do what we are doing will not permit him to go away.
"The law written in his nature tells him he must be with his elder brother and do what he is doing, and he cannot understand why this law of love is being so wildly and unjustly violated in his case.
"Many times are like that, and in a sense, this terrible situation is the pattern and prototype of all sin: the deliberate and formal will to reject disinterested love for us, for the purely arbitrary reason that we simply do not want it. We `will' to separate ourselves from that love; we reject it entirely and absolutely, and will not acknowledge it, because it does not please us to be loved . . . "
[Thomas Merton immediately recalls an astounding event] "when our `gang' tried to antagonize the extremely tough Polish kids who had formed a gang in nearby Little Neck (approaching their headquarters) and "from a very safe distance we would challenge them to come out and fight" (but) "nobody came out - perhaps (that day) there was nobody home."
But then came the day, Merton recalls, "one cold and rainy afternoon, when we observed that numbers of large and small figures, varying in age from 10 to 16, most of them very brawny" gathered outside the Merton home, "20 or 25 of them. There were four of us."[hiding inside].
"The climax of the situation came when Frieda, our German maid, told us that she was very busy with housecleaning and we must all get out of the house immediately. Without listening to our extremely nervous protests, she chased us out the back way . . . we ... Read More
Rated by buyers -
"The Seven Storey Mountain" is that rarest of gems: an articulate book about a lifelong spiritual quest.
Its author, Thomas Merton, tells the story of his life, how his vague unease about spiritual questions eventually led him not only to Catholicism but to the narrow walls of a Trappist monastery in Kentucky.
The writing is rich and thoughtful. Whatever your opinion of Merton's conclusions, you find yourself admiring his bravery and honesty.
Surprisingly, the book is actually quite the multi-textured rumination on life in America in mid-century as much as it is the story of Merton's life. His gallery of characters and evocative prose never disappoint. Here's a sample:
"It was a bright, icy-cold afternoon when, having passed Nantucket Light, we very first saw the long, low, orange shoreline of Long Island shining palely in the December sun. But when we entered New York harbor the lights were already coming on, glittering like jewels in the hard, clear buildings. The great, debonair city that was both young and old, and wise and innocent, shouted in the winter night as we passed the Battery and started up the North River. And I was glad, very glad to be an immigrant once again." (p. 151)
I would recommend "The Seven Storey Mountain" to anybody who finds himself restless about spiritual matters, even if he has no particular interest in Catholicism or even Christianity. The book's reach is much deeper than that.
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