Raids on the Unspeakable [Paperback]

Thomas Merton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 17, 1966

This collection of his prose writings reveals the extent to which Thomas Merton moved from the other-worldly devotion of his earlier work to a direct, deeply engaged, often militant concern with the critical situation of man in the world.

Here this concern finds expression in poetic irony and in meditations intentionally dour.

In these brief, challenging pieces, Father Merton does not offer consolation or easy remedies. He looks candidly and without illusions at the world of his time. Though he sees dark horizons, his ultimate answer is one of Christian hope. To vary the perspective, he writes in many forms, using parable and myth, the essay and the meditation, satire and manifesto, prose poetry and even adaptations from a medieval Arab mystic (Ibn Abbad) to humanize and dramatic his philosophical themes.

The themes of Raids on the Unspeakable are as old as the myths of Prometheus and Atlas, and as timely as the human evils of today. They range from the "Message" written for an international congress of poets to the beautiful yet disturbing Christmas meditation, "The Time of the End Is the Time of No Room." And there are essays inspired by the world of three significant contemporary writers: Flannery O'Connor, the French novelist Julien Green, and the playwright Eugène Ionesco. A number of Father Merton's own drawings are also included in the book—not as "illustrations," but as "signatures" or :"abstract writings," which stand in their own right as another personal statement.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This small collection of Merton's essays presents the Trappist monk at his most bracing. Among other things, it sheds great light on that phenomenon we call the 1960s, which is when this book was first published. Even while writing about topics as diverse as Adolf Eichmann, Flannery O'Conner, and Prometheus, the essays engage the complicated history of those days head on, even while they explore the underlying spiritual issues. Above all, the essays celebrate the vigorous energy of life itself, uncontrolled, spontaneous, and natural--what Merton here calls the festival of rain: "all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees." Idiosyncratic, full of humor and poetic energy, these raids, as Merton himself says, "are not so much concerned with ethical principles and traditional answers ... but in difficult insights at a moment of human crisis." --Doug Thorpe

About the Author

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) entered the Cistercian Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, following his conversion to Catholicism and was ordained Father M. Louis in 1949. During the 1960s, he was increasingly drawn into a dialogue between Eastern and Western religions and domestic issues of war and racism. In 1968, the Dalai Lama praised Merton for having a more profound knowledge of Buddhism than any other Christian he had known. Thomas Merton is the author of the beloved classic The Seven Storey Mountain.

Product Details

• Paperback: 182 pages
• Publisher: New Directions (January 17, 1966)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811201015
• ISBN-13: 978-0811201018
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #521,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) is arguably the most influential American Catholic author of the twentieth century. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, has millions of copies and has been translated into over fifteen languages. He wrote over sixty other books and hundreds of poems and articles on topics ranging from monastic spirituality to civil rights, nonviolence, and the nuclear arms race.

After a rambunctious youth and adolescence, Merton converted to Roman Catholicism and entered the Abbey of Gethsemani, a community of monks belonging to the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Trappists), the most ascetic Roman Catholic monastic order.

The twenty-seven years he spent in Gethsemani brought about profound changes in his self-understanding. This ongoing conversion impelled him into the political arena, where he became, according to Daniel Berrigan, the conscience of the peace movement of the 1960's. Referring to race and peace as the two most urgent issues of our time, Merton was a strong supporter of the nonviolent civil rights movement, which he called "certainly the greatest example of Christian faith in action in the social history of the United States." For his social activism Merton endured severe criticism, from Catholics and non-Catholics alike, who assailed his political writings as unbecoming of a monk.

During his last years, he became deeply interested in Asian religions, particularly Zen Buddhism, and in promoting East-West dialogue. After several meetings with Merton during the American monk's trip to the Far East in 1968, the Dali Lama praised him as having a more profound understanding of Buddhism than any other Christian he had known. It was during this trip to a conference on East-West monastic dialogue that Merton died, in Bangkok on December 10, 1968, the victim of an accidental electrocution. The date marked the twenty-seventh anniversary of his entrance to Gethsemani.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book I ever read!, December 30, 2001

By 

Stephen J Spiro (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Raids on the Unspeakable (Paperback)

This was Merton's favorite book (of his own writing), and my favorite book as well. He was a scholar and a poet, and his essays reflect that: he does not write down to his audience. Merton was that great rarity: an existential mystic. He had incredible insights; his writing had a profound influence on ME. These essays are meant to be disturbing. Written in the Sixties, they are as meaningful today as then.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential to the Christian Contemplative, June 21, 2000

By 

nate downing (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Raids on the Unspeakable (Paperback)

Merton is regarded as one of the few prophets of the 2oth century by the Catholic Church, and Raids makes it clear why. A series of essays and drawings, Raids on the Unspeakable provides valuable insight into the cultural phenomenon known as the 60s. While some of Mertons essays are hard to understnad, on a whole the book is well written and provides interesting philosophies on life. Merton's prophecies also seem to deal wiht many present day problems. Some highlights of the boke are Rain and the Rhinoceros', and Meditations in the Memory of Adolf Eichelman.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, challenging, relevant, September 16, 2008

By 

Brad Shorr "Brad Shorr" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Raids on the Unspeakable (Paperback)

This book is unexpected and unlike other Thomas Merton writings I'm familiar with. He wrote this collection of reflections on modernity late in his career, when, as he tells us, he had become a different man -

"[People] demand that I remain forever the superficially pious, rather rigid and somewhat narrow-minded young monk I was twenty years ago, and at the same time they continually circulate the rumor that I have left my monastery. What has actually happened is that I have been simply living where I am and developing in my own way ..." (p 172)

"Raids" is hard to classify. It is a collection of essays, poems, parables, and other forms. It is at turns blunt, scathing, poetic, mystical, obscure, inscrutable, and nearly incomprehensible. But always, as with all Merton writings, it is nakedly honest, penetrating, and challenging.

The book contains 13 brief reflections -
1. Asks the question, what do we need?
2. Explores mercy versus determinism.
3. Interpretation of Flannery O'Conner's work, focusing on the idea of "respect".
4. Asks, upon reviewing the career of Adolf Eichmann, what is sanity?
5. Challenges us on the hazards of moral neutrality.
6. On the emptiness of modern society.
7. On Prometheus as hero and villain.
8. On the tension between myth and modern reality (I think).
9. Similar to #8.
10. "Notes for a cosmic meditation."
11. Exploration of the thought of a Sufi contemplative.
12. The modern poet's response to modern absurdity.
13. On what artistic freedom really means.

Each of these, one way or another, forces us out of our comfort zone, to grapple with issues we'd prefer to ignore. Here, Merton seems far more concerned with what we are doing than what we are thinking or feeling. The spirit of the book is summed up well in this passage -

"The true solutions are not those which we force upon life in accordance with our theories, but those which life itself provides for those who dispose themselves to receive the truth ... For since man has decided to occupy the place of God he has shown himself to be by far the blindest, and cruelest, and pettiest and most ridiculous of all the false gods. We can call ourselves innocent only if we refuse to forget this, and if we also do everything we can to make others realize it." (p 61)

The modern world is what it is ... unless we rebel. "Raids" is calling on us to do just that, in just about every way possible. Uncomfortable, but hard to ignore.