406 - Merton: By Those Who Knew Him Best & Getting It All Together: The Heritage of Thomas Merton

Merton: By Those Who Knew Him Best
Edited by Paul Wilkes
San Francisco, Harper: Row, 1984. 171 pp. $12.95.

Getting It All Together: The Heritage of Thomas Merton
Edited by Timothy Mulhearn
Wilmington, Michael Glazier, 1984. 109 pp. $4.95.

Thomas Merton has fascinated the public ever since his youthful autobiography became a best seller in 1948. That fascination has continued, even intensified, since the monks tragic death in Asia in 1968. Books on all aspects of his life and thought keep coming. Now there are two films: "Winter Rain: Six Images of Thomas Merton," a play by Anthony Padovano, and a TV documentary, "Merton: a Film Biography," done by Paul Wilkes for the Public Broadcasting System.

Those who have seen the documentary will welcome the book edited by Wilkes. The film provided exquisite visual images of the places where Merton lived and visited, a portion of Mertons last talk in Bangkok (the only videotape ever made of him), and brief observations on the man by a host of interesting people who were associated with him in various ways. The book offers us the full transcript of interviews with these persons.

The title of the book is misleading. Certainly there are observations by some who knew Merton intimately, such as Robert Lax, his classmate at Columbia, and Flavian Burns, who was his student and later his abbot at Gethsemani. There are others, however, who only met Merton once: Lawrence Ferlinghetti at his City Lights bookstore when Merton visited San Francisco en route to Asia, and Jean Jadot, former papal nuncio in

408 - Merton: By Those Who Knew Him Best & Getting It All Together: The Heritage of Thomas Merton

the U.S. and then President of the Vatican Secretariet for Non-Christians, who encountered Merton for the first time the day before the monk died. The diverse group of people who comment on him in this book represent varying degrees of closeness to Merton and distinctive angles of vision on him. Their remarks are impressionistic and for the most part quite lively. What they have to say is sometimes serious, but never solemn.

Folksinger Joan Baez recalls meeting Merton in 1967 and being nervous about what to do and say around "holy people." She was readily put at ease by being taken on a picnic, drinking Scotch with Merton, and talking, she says, for about nineteen hours. James Laughlin, publisher of New Directions, relates to "Tom" as a brilliant writer who was always capable of growth, self-criticism, and new literary styles. Monk and scholar Jean Leclercq sees Merton as belonging to the tradition of the great spiritual fathers of the church like Gregory of Nyssa and Bernard of Clairvaux. Ernesto Cardenal, now Minister of Culture in Nicaragua, recalls his clays as a student under Merton's direction at Gethsemani and how Merton influenced him as a poet and a contemplative committed to radical social transformation.

The interviews are grouped in relation to Merton as writer, prophet, friend, monk, and pilgrim. Together they succeed in conjuring up a rich, complex, multi-faceted portrait of the man. One feature of Thomas Merton's personality to which they all attest is his extraordinary humanity. He loved solitude, but he loved being with people. Merton possessed an exceptional gift for human relationships.

This book is not a good first introduction to Merton, for the facts about his life are skimpy and the chronology of his development unclear. But for those who have begun to know Thomas Merton, the book offers a delightful way of discovering new insights into the best known monk of our times.

Getting It All Together is a very different sort of book. One of Merton's fellow Cistercians, M. Basil Pennington, introduces the four essays and their authors. He expresses the hope that these writings will lead many to choose Merton "as a spiritual father, and to pursue with him that task of getting it all together, which will lead to the full simplicity of God, the source of the unity and fraternity of the human family."

Amiya Chakravarty, a long time friend and correspondent of Merton's, pleads for a fundamental meeting of civilizations and religions, for experiencing what is sacred in various traditions, and for understanding all religion as essentially relational. While these are themes which often appear in Merton's work, it is unclear in the essay whether the author is drawing on Merton or simply articulating his own thinking. Perhaps Chakravarty is avoiding what Brother David Steindl-Rast worries about in his essay, the "danger of speaking too much about Thomas Merton and too little about his deep concerns." Steindl-Rast is faithful to his own cautions, and while using Merton's insights, gives us his own vision

409 - Merton: By Those Who Knew Him Best & Getting It All Together: The Heritage of Thomas Merton

of what contemplation is and how it is related to the deepest longings of the human heart. Richard Anthony Cashen charts Thomas Merton's search for solitude and probes his grasp of its meaning and importance in the Christian life. George Kilcourse takes us laboriously through the twists and turns of Merton's Christology in an effort to give a systematic reading of Merton's spirituality, which, as Kilcourse sees it, has the incarnation at the center.

The essays appear to have different purposes. While each has its own merits, it is difficult to know how these form a unified book. Are they "spiritual reading," theology, or religious commentary? Nor is it evident what sort of audience the editor has in mind. The slangy title does the essays a disservice. The essays move in such different directions and are written in such different styles that the reader is mystified regarding where and how the book gets it all together.

Elena Malits, CSC
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, Indiana