Books

By Sabina Clarke

In her book On Thomas Merton, Mary Gordon admits that for years Merton’s writing did not resonate with her. For her Confirmation at nine she was given Merton’s Seeds of Contemplation—unlikely reading fare for a child.

That Mary Gordon would eventually discover Thomas Merton seems destined ; she cites some coincidences –Merton went to Columbia, she went to Barnard; her first editor was the widow of one of Merton’s closest friends; she and Merton shared a parish Corpus Christi on 121st street in New York and among her father’s possessions was his translation of one of Merton’s poems written in French from his book The Tears of the Blind Lions.

These musings aside, the real catalyst for Gordon’s sudden awakening to Merton came when she was asked by the Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library to give a lecture on Merton for their planned exhibit of his papers on his 100th birthday. Thus began her journey to unravel the mystique of Merton the writer and Merton the monk.

Gordon observes that if Merton had been a monk and not a writer, we would have never heard of him; and if Merton had been a writer and not a monk we would have never heard of him. This simple but astute observation is worth noting.

As for Merton’s poetry and his literary criticism Gordon is not impressed- while acknowledging that his work was never totally his own since his writing was subject to Trappist censors and the Church hierarchy-- a crippling burden for any writer.

Among the writers Merton corresponded with were the British writer Evelyn Waugh and the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz; both of whom critiqued his writing –Waugh more harshly— neither seemed to grasp the restraints Merton was under as a writer.

Primarily they came to him for spiritual counsel: Merton’s advice to them was to say the rosary every day. In this capacity Merton was not the writer monk seeking approval from his tutors but the monk dispensing moral advice from a position of strength. Eventually Waugh gave up on Merton improving as a writer but Merton’s friendship with the Nobel Prize-winning poet Milosz, lasted until Merton’s death.


Mary Gordon
Nothing escapes Gordon’s razor- sharp eye such as her wonderment as to why when Merton was at Columbia College he had no contact with the poet John Berryman since both were aspiring poets and both classmates at Columbia and

both students of Mark Van Doren –-- this makes the reader ponder--was it because Berryman was the better poet?

She notes the deep psychic wounds Merton suffered as a child—such as the death of his mother at age 6 and the death of his father when he was 16.

His childhood was peripatetic; his surroundings constantly changing with the various moves from place to place. He was either in a French or English boarding school or left to the care of his maternal grand-parents when his artist father was traveling abroad.

What is telling and what is never mentioned in any of Merton’s writing or even in his journals-- is the girl Merton impregnated while a student at Cambridge--a transgression that got him expelled and shipped off by his guardian in England to live with his maternal grand-parents in Long Island.

And what is most disturbing is that any reference to this incident in Merton’s life disparages the girl describing her as a “working class girl who was bought off.”

One of the most fascinating observations Gordon makes is that Merton had a deep strain of self-loathing which she traces to his illegitimate child – a baby girl-- and her mother whom Merton abandoned; both died in the London Blitz.


Thomas Merton
Since at least one third of Merton’s autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain was excised by the censors—it is plausible to speculate that this significant incident in Merton’s life may have been described in detail only to be excised by the censors who were said to be shocked by the references to “drinking and carousing” in the original version of the book.

Gordon at last finds the essential uncensored Merton in all his splendor by reading his entire seven journals that were permitted to be published 25 years after his death. This, for Gordon, is where the real Merton resides.

She concludes her dance with Merton the monk who eluded her for so long and whom she has finally embraced with this eloquent tribute: “This flawed mess of a man lived every day with fullness, with a heartfelt passion for the truth he knew would always be beyond his grasp. I close the volumes of the journal and I weep.”

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