Book Review: Seven Storey Mountain

For our Frassati Book club, I got to choose the book. It was actually the first book I got to choose! I chose The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton. I chose it because I had bought it many years back but had never read it.  A friend of a friend recommended it highly. I also was intrigued about Thomas Merton after finishing the Catholicism series DVDs by Fr. Robert Barron (highly recommended).

Anyway, on to the review. I found it fantastic. It's the story of a man who grew from one pole of religion to another. He considered himself an atheist, a communist, and a fierce anti-Catholic at different points in his life. Then the truth hit him like a hammer. He became enraptured by Catholicism and the beauty found therin and decided to not just become a good Catholic, but a Saint. He realized his vocation was to the priesthood and the contemplative life. He eventually entered a Trappist monastery in Kentucky.

I really like his writing style. He's an excellent writer and a poet. I especially love reading about his deep spiritual experiences such as his first communion and his spiritual journey to Cuba (before communist rule). He's very well read and very well educated. His self-knowledge reminds me a lot of St. Augustine's confessions. How he searches deep within himself and the reasons why he did things or thought certain ways. It was also very interesting to me how he talked about World Wars I and II. He didn't say that certain politics, powers, etc caused these wars, he said that he caused them. His sins and the sins of others like them were what led to such atrocities. Even though he wasn't directly involved in the wars, he recognized what our collective sin is capable of doing if left unrepentant.