Striving Towards Being: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Czeslaw Milosz [Hardcover]

Thomas Merton (Author), Czeslaw Milosz (Author), Robert Faggen (Author, Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1996

In a selection from their ten-year correspondence from 1958 to 1968, the Trappist monk and the Polish writer debate the role of communism in the Cold War era, share advice about literature, and exchange contrasting views on the natural world.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

These letters, written from 1958 to 1968, trace the growing friendship and fascinating arguments between the Trappist monk Thomas Merton and Czeslaw Milosz, the poet who was later exiled from his native Poland, yet went on to win the 1980 Nobel Prize in literature. The quest to make sense out of the human condition is the bridge between their worlds of literature and religion, and the two men have a lot to say to one another. Is humanity inherently good? Can art save us from ourselves? Can war be justified? These letters are worth reading strictly for the quality of the writing and the thinking, but they are also valuable as literary biography and cultural history.

From Booklist

The rare opportunity to share an intimate conversation of singular poetic depth is touching, from Merton's awkward first approach after reading Milosz's Captive Mind to a long silence after intense discussion of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement to the abrupt ending just before Merton's sudden death. Readers with an interest in either Milosz or Merton will find much of value here. They nurtured each other, and their 10-year correspondence is a sacrament of "the church of friends" named by Merton at the very end. Steve Schroeder

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 177 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (T); 1st edition (December 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374271003
• ISBN-13: 978-0374271008
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #743,864 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 4.1 stars: A candid, sharp, sane, respectful exchange, June 22, 2001

By 

dylanissimus "dylanissimus" (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Striving Towards Being: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Czeslaw Milosz (Hardcover)

This volume consists of about a decade's worth of correspondence (1959-68) between the sometimes sagacious Trappist monk Thomas Merton and the Lithuanian-born Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, later to become a Nobel laureate for Literature. Milosz was residing in Paris when the correspondence began, but he soon moved to Berkeley, California, to teach at the university. Merton was writing from Gethsemani, Kentucky, apart from one or two notes from his travel in 1968.

These are two alert minds, discussing everything from Communism to segregation, Catholicism to television, campus unrest to poetry. We see in Milosz a salubrious skepticism toward some of Merton's progressive enthusiasms, and even a sharp critique of those who would equate the flaws of American capitalism with the grave sins of Stalinism (Milosz uses the word "injustice" rather pointedly). During campus unrest at Berkeley, Milosz notes that the More Compassionate Than Thou seem to have compassion for everyone but "squares." Milosz is neither pacifist nor anarch, and in one or two instances provides a valuable counterpoint to Merton's views -- particularly on communism, which Milosz saw up close.

Interesting, to see the views of both men concur about the liturgical changes in the Catholic Church (not much enthusiasm for them); about confession, Milosz explains some "problems" he has had, and Merton gives us his views on what occurs during the Sacrament. There is much about poetry -- one or two poems by each author are included -- and about a magazine which Merton edited in his final days, "Monks Pond."

Mertonians will enjoy this volume, and even persons such as this reviewer, whose respect for Merton is not to be confused with discipleship or idolatry. Milosz has a sharp mind, able to discourse with breathtaking ease about Marx, Hegel, and the heresy of Socinianism (?!) -- about the plight of four Polish writers nicknamed Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta -- about the spirit of the Sixties & some of its less palatable side effects. I was inspired by "Striving Towards Being" to explore the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz, and was not disappointed.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Moment of Clarity Captured, April 7, 2001

By 

Carol Luther "The priest who reads" (San Anselmo, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Striving Towards Being: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Czeslaw Milosz (Hardcover)

Czeslaw Miloscz and Thomas Merton have always been two of my favorite writers; until this book I had not known they were friends. This book celebrates that rare thing I remember from youth: a friendship of ideas between kindred spirits. These letters were written at the beginning of the 1960's -- a rare moment of cultural clarity on both sides of the "iron curtain." Forty years later, with the triumph of capitalism and our so-called "individualism" all but assured, with religious questions making the daily news, it is a good thing to step back and view the world's conversation as it was beginning, when there were two poets for whom ideas and ethics were living and breathing and more exciting than money. God, freedom, community -- they're all here as well as prophetic looks at mass media, individualism and other buzz words. Milosz and Merton really make them buzz. Read this.

0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Another Satisfied Customer, November 1, 2010

By 

eprof - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Striving Towards Being: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Czeslaw Milosz (Hardcover)

This is the third copy of STRIVING TOWARDS BEING that I have purchased online.
I believe that the other two were from an online competitor. But, by my recollections, Amazon was as fast if not faster than the other two purchases.
Good for you!