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Through the Narrow Gate: A Memoir of Spiritual Discovery

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Karen Armstrong entered a convent as a teenager in the 60's. While all the tumult of the sexual revolution, the Cold War, the Vietnam War seethed in the outside world, Karen was struggling with her difficult and almost medieval novitiate, her classes at Oxford, where her training as a nun conflicted with the scholastic world, and with her health. While Karen sought to cool the passions and desires of the world and become the perfect nun, her body rebelled and she suffered anorexia, fainting fits which were attributed to her emotions (but were diagnosed as epilepsy much later on.) Meanwhile, she achieved scholastic triumphs at Oxford, but at heavy price.

How Karen adjusts to live in the convent, and then to life at Oxford is an amazing story. Her autobiography is unsentimental and honest. This is a fascinating personal story as well as a rare look into a secret world that was forever altered by Vatican II and its reforms.

....cloistered in a psychological as well as a physical sense.
Karen Armstrong, a woman of prodigious intellect and talent, a woman who has written seminal books on the subject of religion, goes inside her own personal experience as a cloistered nun in Through the Narrow Gate.
It's not a particularly pretty picture, this story of her seven years immersed in a life full of bleakness, medical neglect, sexual frustration, and mindless negation of intellect. For someone of Armstrong's mind-set, that last privation must have been hardest to bear. Outside the walls of the cloister, meanwhile, the chaos of the 60s was raging, making the life within more inexplicable - and ultimately, irrelevant.
There is one bright, kind, and encouraging Mother Superior, however, who provides the necessary window of light, a person who provides Armstrong with both a reason to stay and a reason to leave the convent.
It's a blessing for us that she did leave and go on to live her life as a scholar, teacher and author. It's almost an equal blessing, however, that she endured those 7 years and writes about it so poitnantly; it makes her presence in the world all the more valuable.

Through a Narrow Gate is a testament to the personal struggle between feeling the faith and wanting to somehow live it, too. I am impressed with her ability to relive the experience while being fair to both sides and making their decisions and feelings make sense, even when they are directly opposing. The most remarkable thing is her feelings about the modern convents given her struggle and her respect for what was. Her respect is contagious - she gave it to me! She, and her experiences, seem to ratify my own even as mine pale against her story. I recommend it to anyone seriously trying to understand God in their own lives and in their own terms.

As this is a book relating to Catholicism, it is fitting for me to start the review with a confession. I bought this book not because I was interested in it, but because I wanted to read its sequel - The Spiral Staircase - and felt I should read this book first. I was not interested all that much in the story of becoming a nun and my only curiosity was how Miss Armstrong would find anything interesting to say about it.

Well, I was off the mark. Karen Armstrong's recounting of her 2 years in the convent (and subsequent disenchantment with the process) are fascinating. Most of the action in this story takes place inside the subject's head as she tries to wrestle with being human in a place where humanness is to be shed (as one must renounce worldy desires, thoughts, and feelings to be close to God).

Karen Armstrong does a magnificent job of depicting what this conflict is like. The process of becoming a nun, as Armstrong describes it, is a rigorous program of self-denial. One is not to complain, be tired, be mournful, be happy, be questioning, or let onesself feel any of the things that come with the territory of being human. Rather, it was taught that the pinnacle of the spiritual life was the abillty to shed one's humanness, to think and feel only about one thing - God.

Armstrong also tells of a very hierarchal system where to question one's superiors is to question God (as one's superiors are closer to God than onesself; that is why they are superiors). With accuity of word, Karen Armstrong recounts how she was constantly made to feel insignificant and imbecilic by her superiors. At the same time, feeling bad about this was attributed to her weak spirit and - so it was called - her selfishness.

Armstrong's story ends when she voluntarily leaves the convent after experiencing much too much. Here she tells of the schock of living in a 'regular' world after years of physical and emotional seclusion.

This is much more interesting a book than i had originally thought it would be. Owing to Armstrong's ability to describe the internal struggle between her desire to be human and her desire to devote herself to God, Through the Narrow Gate has an incredible forward motion. As The Spiral Staircase picks up where this book leaves off, I cannot wait to read the latter half of Karen Armstrong's remarkable journey.

Karen Armstrong has written a compelling memoir of her time in the convent in formation to become a nun. She wants this life so badly that she will forsake everything, including her own mind, to attain a perfect relationship with God. This is what she was told she must do. She did this despite gut feelings to the contrary, despite physical illness, and despite slowly dying inside. In fact, she believed this was a sign of progress.

The cruelty of her superiors, whether intentional or not, truly shocked me, even in the era before Vatican II reforms. That someone is put in such supreme authority over others (the superiors are seen as direct agents of God, to be obeyed no matter what) is just inviting abuse, even if the superiors believe they are acting correctly. The austerity of the order (which is not named) also seemed misguided. By denying themselves friendships, intellect, and enjoyment of God's creation, they seemed to be missing the whole point of a relationship with God.

As someone who was raised Catholic, I found this a very eye-opening tale. I do hope that the sort of abuse Ms. Armstrong suffered is the exception rather than the rule in religious life. And I'm amazed that she came out of her experience without more bitterness. But her story reminds all of us that blind faith in any human authority figure is very dangerous indeed.

Karen Armstrong writes of the tribulations she encountered while a nun in England in the 1960's. This book is not a hatchet-job or a racy "true confessions" kind of screed. It is instead a frank, informative, and searing narrative of how the author felt she could no longer continue her vocation in the regimented atmosphere of the convent. I almost felt as if I was reading Thomas Merton's "Seven Storey Mountain" with a "Rewind" button pushed. I highly recommend it.

Karen Armstrong has written a most marvelous account of her life within a very strict order of English Catholic nuns of the 1960's. Her description of the torments she endured has caused me to regard with renewed respect and affection the nuns who taught me in the 1950's. How odd that we boys who were in class with the nuns for hours each day really had no idea of what kind of lives some of them led in the hours before and after school. The moral, spiritual, and intellectual gifts they bestowed on us daily are inestimable, even though at the time we were probably more interested in whether or not they actually had hair under their wimples!

I've noticed some confusion in these reviews about several aspects of Catholic religious orders of those days. First, despite having no contact for long periods of time with "seculars" - i.e., civilians - Karen was not in a order of "cloistered" nuns. Cloistered sisters do truly cut themselves off completely from the world and, if I can be so bold as to describe them, they live a life governed by "ora et labora" - work and prayer. In fact, though, as strict as they were, Karen's order was primarily an order of teaching sisters.

But there is a much more important concept that many people seem not quite to grasp, and that is that all Catholic youth of those days - at least in my experience - were taught that the most perfect way to be a true follower of Christ was to share in his suffering. That is why those nuns were treated - and treated themselves - as harshly as any Marine Corps recruits would ever be treated - only the nun's harsh treatment was to continue all her life. Certainly, most youth who took Catholicism very seriously must have given thought at one time or another to entering the religious life. We were always told to examine ourselves to determine if we had a religious vocation, but we were also warned that it was not a calling for everyone. In any event, to decide at a young age to become a nun, brother, or priest - to dedicate one's life to doing good - was not understood by many of us to be the same as dedicating one's whole existence to God. When young people make the decision to enter the religious life they often do not know what that really entails. Some religious communities are extraordinarily strict, others less so. The particularly strict order to which Karen belonged was obviously intent on making sure those young girls found out immediately that the religious life was not a game, that sharing in Christ's suffering was not to be an abstract concept but a concrete reality. Those young nuns were to put up with the sadism of some of their superiors in the same way as Christ had to endure the sadism of his tormenters. They were not only to tolerate it but to welcome it and even seek out even more spiritual pain and physical hardship. (As the British often jokingly say about the paddlings they endured in school, "Please sir may I have another?") This concept of self-denial is probably not well understood in our modern climate of "personal fulfillment."

The total abnegation of self, of one's personal desires, of pride, of the hope for friendship and love, was the goal of the harshness they inflicted upon themselves. Their goal was to die to themselves in order to reach God. If you do not grasp this concept I think you'll miss the heroism inherent in the story of Karen and her fellow nuns. Naturally, that kind of life is not for very many of us, as Karen eventually found out for herself. It may be totally misguided or, by modern standards, even pathological, but it's the way some people have reached true holiness.

I'm very happy for myself and for all her readers that Karen Armstrong eventually chose to leave the convent and to follow another path in life. This book is not only a gift from her but, through her, a gift to us from all those other nuns who took - and take - the road less traveled. A truly wonderful and enlightening gift.

The author is a well-known popular writer on religion (if such a thing exists), but here turns to her own experience in a convent for seven years. At the tender age of 17 Armstrong joined a contemplative order--one not totally cloistered but close enough for the first few years--and attempts to destroy her own ego to allow God to fill her mind and soul. Unfortunately, what happens is what all too often happens in life when one human being is given total authority over another, even with that person's consent--the worst human impulses toward cruelty take over--the desire to inflict on another what has been inflicted on oneself is passed on down the line just as the abused child becomes the abusive parent. In this case the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience translate into senseless restrictions on basic human needs like eating and bathing, ridiculous orders being given in the name of testing obedience, neglect of the health of the young novices, refusal to acknowledge abusive behavior of priests, etc. Despite all this, Armstrong manages to convey the beauty of the religious experience and love of God. I was struck by how similar to eastern religions were the methods used to "seek God"--the denial of bodily needs, the isolation from other human beings, the notion that an individual must let go of the self to find God--all are straight out of Buddhism. Is the concept of the self too highly developed and embedded in the Western man or woman for these methods to work? Does the bodily and mental deprivation do something strange to the self that "creates" the experience of God? Is authentic religious experience only for a select few--because if anyone had a "vocation" as I understood the term back then it was certainly Ms. Armstrong--the intensity of her desire to stay the course was overwhelming. In any event this book is a lot more than a broadside attack on the Catholic church pre-Vatican II. I wish the author had answered a few questions in a post-script--her health problems during these years were certainly real but are unexplained, and she leaves the impression that they were caused by the convent--but I suspect that wasn't totally the case. At the very least she seems to have been lactose intolerant--something the convent didn't cause but unfortunately exacerbated. And it's hard to understand how the order thought it could train her to shut down her mind and question nothing for three years and then send her to Oxford. Readers who can get past feeling angry at the treatment Armstrong received will find much to think about.

but well worth getting through the gritty parts.

I picked this book up on a display table in my local library just as I was checking out and was not disappointed by what I read. In this autobiography Karen Armstrong tells what it was like to be in training to be a nun and ultimately become a nun in 1960's England. What I found stunning was the complete figurative death of self that this order had to go through to prove themselves worthy. Not being of the Catholic Faith, I didn't realize how terribly, terribly hard it is/was for these girls and women. The stripping of all emotions, that in order to be completely filled with God and his love, you have to empty yourself no matter what happens to you...sickness in body, sickness in mind...it is just a matter or pushing through whatever is ailing you...mind over matter. After reading this book it makes sense to me that in order to be a good nun you would have to do that, even if you don't want to and struggle daily with the feeling of self-doubt. I have a new admiration for nuns and what they go through. That Karen Armstrong left her order is of no surprise to me. She is a powerful writer and I can't wait to read her book "The Spiral Staircase."

If you are at all interested in nuns, I would highly recommend this book

Detailing step by step how she reached the decision to enter a convent, the process noviceship, postulantship, the trials and joys of being a nun, and her gradual realization that her spiritual quest lay outside the walls of the convent, Karen Armstrong's autobiography is rich with detail, honest, and reflective. She avoids painting the church and its adminstration as demons, yet vividly describes the search for the personal annihilation her superiors demanded of her with unabashed candor. A truly fascinating read; it is a tragedy that the sequel, _Beginning the World_, is out of print.