The Seven Storey Mountain

429 pp. 8vo. Review by Evelyn Waugh on dust jacket front and on inside flap, which also includes comments by Clifton Fadiman, Graham Greene, Clare Boothe Luce, and Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen. "The Seven Storey Mountain is the autobiography of Thomas Merton, a Trappist Monk and a noted author of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Merton finished the book in 1946 at the age of 31, five years after entering the Gethsemani Abbey near Bardstown, Kentucky. The title refers to the mountain of Purgatory in Dante's Divine Comedy. Seven Storey Mountain was published in 1948 and was met with surprising levels of public attention. The first printing was planned for 7,500 copies, but pre-publication sales exceeded 20,000. By May, 1949, 100,000 copies were in print. The original hardcover edition eventually sold over 600,000 copies, and paperback sales exceed one million. The book has remained continuously in print, and has been translated into more than fifteen languages. Seven Storey Mountain tells the story of Merton's conversion to Roman Catholicism and his commitment to the monastic way of life within the Cistercian (Trappist) Order of the Benedictine Tradition. The book begins by reviewing the loneliness of Merton’s childhood. His mother died when he was six, and his father died ten years later. Merton was subsequently shuffled between temporary accommodations in France, England and finally the United States. As a boy, Merton was given nominal exposure to Anglican and Protestant Christianity. However, in his late teen years, Merton rejected religious faith entirely. His motto was 'I believe in nothing'. As Seven Storey Mountain continues, Merton appears as a restless, rather directionless young man who tried but failed to find satisfaction in secular ideals and institutions such as academia, literature and revolutionary politics. Merton reported finding ultimate truth within Roman Catholic doctrine upon his formal conversion at the age of 23, and true peace and fulfillment as a monk at Gethsemani Abbey. He described the apparent confinement of the cloistered life as 'the four walls of my new freedom.' In The Seven Storey Mountain Merton seems to be struggling to answer a spiritual call; the worldly influences of his earlier years have been compared with the story of St. Augustine's conversion as described in his Confessions. Merton’s Augustinian candor regarding his previous indulgence in the worldly practices of drinking alcohol and casual sexuality caused a censor from the Cistercian Order to delay publication in 1947, until the controversial passages were toned down. Seven Storey Mountain is said to have struck a nerve amidst a society longing for renewed personal meaning and direction in the aftermath of a long, bloody war (World War II), and at a time when global annihilation was increasingly imaginable due to the development of atomic bombs and even more powerful thermonuclear weapons. The book has served as a powerful recruitment tool for the priestly life in general, and for the monastic orders specifically. In the 1950s, Gethsemani Abbey and the other Trappist monasteries experienced a surge in young men presenting themselves for the cenobitic life. It is a well-known bit of Catholic lore that many priests after the book's publication entered monasteries or seminaries with a copy in their suitcase. Many readers were surprised to read that a young man with such a promising future of secular success would choose a solitary life. However, Merton put his undeniably brilliant mind to good use, becoming one of the most famous and revered spiritual authors in the world. One printing bears this accolade on the cover, from Graham Greene: 'It is a rare pleasure to read an autobiography with a pattern and meaning valid for us all. The Seven Storey Mountain is a book one reads with a pencil so as to make it one's own.' Evelyn Waugh also greatly (although not uncritically) admired the book and its author. The more activist and ecumenical thinkers wit