I give it five stars, but you definitely have to be interested in Merton minutiae to feel that way about this book. Most of it is still actual, private journal, and his life is both as boring and as interesting as anyone's. ( )

there's such a lovely voyeuristic thrill about reading journals, even ones that are all nice and cleaned up and put together like this. i have an immense amount of respect, by the way, for the gethsemane monk who had the task of taking merton's handwritten journals and putting them into shape for publication; his handwriting was appalling! but the journals are fascinating to read! vocation does not always come easily and reading merton's struggles with it is...like hearing the dalai lama joke about being angry enough to kill flies. reassuring in a strange kind of way. ( )

To love oneself perfectly, Merton writes in an entry near the end of this volume, is to disappear. For a writer, it is to disappear entirely into one's writing as God disappears entirely into the world--a disappearance that makes one fully, paradoxically, present. This is the record of a remarkable twentieth-century figure perfecting his love in the process, as the subtitle has it, of becoming a monk and writer. The book includes two fragments and a complete journal, only part of which was published during Merton's lifetime. The complete journal from December 1946 to July_ 1952, which describes the tension between writing and contemplation in which Merton lived at Gethsemani, is an exemplary piece of writing about writing, as well as an invitation to active contemplation. This is the second of seven volumes scheduled to appear over the next three years. It will enchant readers who are new to Merton as well as those who encountered him for the first time in the premonastic journals of volume one and those who have known him for a long time. It will leave new readers and old acquaintances anxious for the next encounter. Steve Schroeder ( )

To love oneself perfectly, Merton writes in an entry near the end of this volume, is to disappear. For a writer, it is to disappear entirely into one's writing as God disappears entirely into the world-a disappearance that makes one fully, paradoxically, present. This is the record of a remarkable twentieth century figure perfecting his love in the process, as the subtitle has it, of becoming a monk and writer. The volume includes two fragments and a complete journal, only part of which was published during Merton's lifetime. In twelve pages, the second fragment-a journal memoir of Dom Frederick Dunne-renders Merton and his first abbot fully present and full of life. The other short fragment, what remains of Merton's novitiate journal, speaks to everyone who has asked (as Merton did), "How will I ever do this?" The complete journal from December 1946-July 1952, "The Whale and the Ivy," which describes the tension between writing and contemplation in which Merton lived at Gethsemani, is an exemplary piece of writing about writing as well as an invitation to active contemplation. This is the second of seven volumes scheduled to appear over the next three years. It will enchant readers who are new to Merton as well as those who encountered him for the first time in the premonastic journals of Volume One and those who have known him for a long time. It will leave new readers and old acquaintances anxious for the next encounter.

NA