Customer Reviews

The Frontiers of Paradise: A Study of Monks and Monasteries

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I was going to write a review, but then I saw that C. Blomberg had already said pretty much everything that needed to be said. But in the interests of recording a second opinion, I agree with everything in the other review except the praise of Levi's writing style. The book's cover blurbs give the same praise, but I didn't find the writing lyrical, poetic, or any otherwise praiseworthy. I did find the entire book badly organized and poorly edited. It seems to have been planned and written by taking the author's notecards, tossing them in the air, and then typing them in according to which landed closest to the desk. It relies far too much on prior knowledge of the subject (which might be fine for an in-depth scholarly work, but not for something that purports to be a gentle overview), does not treat non-Christian non-men with the depth it claims to, does not give the history in any coherent timeline, and in fact, does not tell any coherent story at all.

I wrote the following as a book response paper for a class.

Peter Levi's "The Frontiers of Paradise" was easy to read, but when finished I did not feel either confident that I had learned anything, nor entertained. The book was essentially the idle musings of a man who though he had sincere knowledge of Christian monasticism from his own experiences, and through his sister, a nun, did not appear to be a scholar of religions in more than the most casual way. I enjoyed his flights of fancy, the verbal ballet of excellently crafted sentences, yet felt that they'd been assembled haphazardly so that after the ballet I didn't know the story and was confused as to why the characters had appeared on stage at all.

The most serious flaws of Levi's book can be addressed by reading his very own introduction and then assessing whether he's accomplished the goals he set out for himself. "... discuss the most important historical turning-points in some detail, but to show as much as possible by examples, which have been picked for the light they shed..."(p. 9). In addition he said referring to monks from outside Christianity "I have tried to compare and contrast all kinds [of monastics]..."(p. 9). In explaining what he meant by that, he also pointed out that he had "paid particular attention to the position of women, to monks as others see them, and monks as they see themselves."(p. 10) I am not sure if talking about how monks see themselves has anything to do with comparing and contrasting all kinds of monks. For the purpose of my review only the mention of women in the preceding sentence will be evaluated. As a sort of afterthought Levi also claims that he has concentrated on the "more interesting" differences between different sorts of monks. To detail why I felt this book was a failure, I will address and attempt to demonstrate how he has failed to explain the historical turning points (or shed light with his examples), how he has failed to address all different sorts of monastics and how he has barely skimmed the surface of the subject of women monastics.

First Levi claims he will discuss the crucial turning points in the history of monasticism. It is true that he used many examples, and if he had only ever explained the significance of those examples, I might now have had `light shed' on my understanding of the history of Christian monasticism. Instead, I feel more confused. In order to understand Levi's examples I had to make extensive use of internet information sources. Clearly if one mentions the same terms or individuals over and over in a book it would be best to explain at least the first time, what they mean and why they are important. For example, in the second section, titled "History of Monks" one part is named "Pillars". Here Levi begins "St Stymeon Stylites got his name because he lied for the final forty years of his life, in the fifth century AD, on the top of a tall pillar at Antioch."(p. 44) In the following three pages though Levi provides us with some examples of Stylites and an overview of their history, teaching us that they were "treated as a special order of religion" (p. 45) and asking questions of their role and importance, he does not adequately answer even his own musings, but instead returns to examples without even the courtesy to close the section by speculating as to the disappearance of the Stylitists. What I learned from the Pillars section was that there were Stylites, and what they did was not a ritual. Some of them became very famous (with details of the spread of discussion on Stylites), certain Stylites endured certain horrifically uncomfortable experiences on their pillars and women couldn't go nearby them. As for reasons to become a Stylite, they may have chosen their spots as a way to prove their superiority over the `pagan' religions and they may have been similar to roosters in wanting to crow at sunrise from a high spot. Levi actually offers both of the previous sentences explanations for Stylitism back to back in a single sentence! This is how unflappably trivially his book seems to address what could have been a serious topic. Controlling himself for a moment, Levi suggests that their visibility must have emphasized their message, however the most that he explains their message is to say that they "...surely bore witness deliberately against the values of the world." (p. 48) After this brief foray into explanatory writing Levi returns to the mishmash and describes the strange examples of a few more men who probably thought that sitting on the top of a column brought them nearer to God. Unfortunately, since Levi has told us he'd discuss the important historical turning points, he has failed to prove to us that Stylites were a turning point (and not just a temporary hiccup) much less what would make them important. This passage certainly cannot be said to shed light on the subject, it merely shows an example of extreme weirdness in the history of western religion.

The next point Levi claims to address is that of being broader than Christianity, Levi supposedly is talking to us about all sorts of monks. The laughability of this statement can be proved merely by reading the table of contents. The first part of the book has chapters named "Monkishness, Monasteries, The Setting, The Calling and The Ruins". In order to see in these extremely open ended chapters what sort of inclusiveness he's accomplished, I will pick randomly the middle on, "The Setting". In this chapter we see reference to "Indian holy cows" (p. 24). Perhaps I was being unfair. Let me check another. How about "The Calling". This chapter includes a section on Shakespeare, and a poem from Robert Southwell. There is no mention of anything beyond Europe. In Part Two of the book there is a chapter called "The East". It is all of one and a quarter pages, and flat out states the author's inability to write anything on the subject at all, "admitting to uncertainty... history depends on its available sources, and these are better and fuller in some areas than in others."(p. 35) He continues to explain that there isn't good documentation of the non-Christian religions in the east, a "fact" that I certainly know to be nothing of the sort. He says he's "incompetent to trace what happened in Japan..."(p. 35) and begins the next paragraph with a highly questionable statement "The basis of Indian monasticism is the rejection of this world..."(p. 35) and seems to be confusing Hinduism with Buddhism, or at least the order of their appearance. In this short section he has managed to spread disinformation, and instead of the sorts of examples of individual monks he chooses from the Christian tradition, he's lumped all of the eastern traditions together without mention of a single character besides Guatama Buddha. We can clearly see that he doesn't have the education necessary to include something outside the Christian tradition in this book and hence shouldn't have claimed to be doing so.

Levi claims that he'll discuss the position of women in monasteries and in monasticism. Although, he throws in a few words here and there, praising the nuns, or mentioning the fact that there were nuns at such and such a monastery or that nuns have historically had it harder, in his chapter on Holy Women again we can see that his inclusion is nothing more than a haphazard nod in the direction of his sister, who is a nun. Though the "Holy Women" chapter is eight pages in length, in a book of 205 pages is certainly not enough. The chapter, as is promised by the title, retells a shortened version of the lives of several exemplary women monastics, including Bridget of Sweden, mother of St Catherine, Etheldritha and Jutta. It is only on the last page that Levi attempts to make a point about women's religious orders. He admits a lack of knowledge, "I know nothing about women's manuscripts except in the case of Hildegard, and the suspicion that the nuns at Winchester would bear investigation." (p. 106) and makes some sweeping statements capped with "I have no idea why this should be..." (p. 106). In other words, we hardly feel confident in his assessment of women monastics and the chapter has not a single word of women outside the Christian tradition.

Overall, this book was a large disappointment to me. Despite his lyrical sentences, the lack of organization and follow-through made the entire piece of work feel like the pet project of a slightly senile old man, not that of a scholar. The one piece of credit (aside from the well-crafted sentences) that I will give him though is his ability to pick out the "more interesting" differences between different types of monks. Though I couldn't see much of a difference between some of these sects, in his vivid descriptions of worms crawling on bodies, digestive tracts like camels, and using manuscripts to block beer barrels I felt the sort of morbid fascination that causes one to read a tabloid newspaper. In this way, he definitely has picked out the more interesting and vivid examples, and for that I must give him credit.