Customer Reviews

Raids on the Unspeakable

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Though born & raised a Catholic, I became agnostic in my teens, and have remained so in the decades since ... but Thomas Merton remains a teacher, a guide, and even a spiritual master to this very day. As I grow older, his work speaks to me at a deeper & deeper level, grappling with the very roots & knots of existence & meaning. And not just on a theoretical level, either! As he makes clear, "How do we live?" is a question not merely to be contemplated, but to be acted upon.

In this slim volume of short essays, poems, fables & reflections, we get to the core of living an authentic life, one on a very different level than the materialistic shallows of the American Dream. While we all can't be monks or hermits, there's much to be gained by living in that direction as much as possible. Mind you, this isn't about escapism -- such a life is not for those fleeing reality! If anything, a life genuinely lived strips the ego bare & leaves the individual naked to the universe -- and to his own unblinking, unrelenting eye.

This may not be the best starting point for someone new to Merton, but it surely represents his thought at its purest & most focused. No glib self-help or 5-step programs to be found here, and certainly nothing "inspirational" in the worst sense of that overused & empty word ... but if you feel in your heart & your gut that there must be more to life than what's offered every day, then Merton gives us one potentially rewarding path to follow. It may have its roots in the 1960s, but it's as contemporary as anything current -- more so, in fact. Urgently recommended for the serious seeker!

My friends at the local monastery are justly proud of their Merton. He was, after all, a brilliant man, and the most widely read religious/spiritual writer of his time.

As a long-time writing instructor, however, I can give Merton no better than a C+ for this book, because of its lack of clarity, especially a lack of precise excamples of what he is writing about. It is no good to say if you are "aware", then you can provide your own examples. Merton fails what I take to be his chosen audience: not the professional social critic, but the average Joe or Jane looking for guidance and thought-provoking concrete information.

Some essays, for example his on Adolf Eichmann, clearly deserve an A+, but I am mystified that other reviewers, while acknowledging "Raids" is hard to follow at times or even obscure, rank this book so highly.