Journal of a Solitude
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • Beautiful insight...
  • Excellent!
  • Inspiring
  • Spectacular.
  • "The War Against The Unregenerate Self Goes On"
Journal of a Solitude
May Sarton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

AuthorsAuthors | Arts & Literature | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
GeneralGeneral | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
GeneralGeneral | History & Criticism | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
GeneralGeneral | Essays | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Sarton, MaySarton, May | ( S ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Biographies & MemoirsBiographies & Memoirs | Book Clubs | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:
  1. Plant Dreaming Deep Plant Dreaming Deep
  2. The House by the Sea: A Journal The House by the Sea: A Journal
  3. At Seventy: A Journal At Seventy: A Journal
  4. Recovering: A Journal Recovering: A Journal
  5. Fur Person Fur Person

ASIN: 0393309282

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Beautiful insight..........2007-05-11

This book was beautiful. I loved reading it. It felt delicate to me...the insights shared within the pages...but it was compelling. I picked it up and read a few pages whenever I had the chance. Loved it.

5 out of 5 stars Excellent!.......2006-05-04

If you're into reading memoirs, this is exceptional. Her clarity of thought and her ability to portray her feelings into words is unsurpassed, in my opinion. I enjoy her prose so very much. I can find myself relating to so many of her feelings and thoughts despite the difference of age and time. This is a great read.

5 out of 5 stars Inspiring.......2006-01-27

I read Journal of a Solitude shortly after giving birth to my first child. I was alone in a new neighborhood with few family and friends around me and felt completely estranged from my former life as a professional woman working in New York city. May Sarton's story - shared in such a real and heartfelt way - has always stayed with me. Where are the May Sarton's in today's world? She was an extraordinary woman who was able to connect with a broad audience of readers, through the authentic sharing of her thoughts, feelings and experiences. I miss her work but am thankful that she left behind a wonderful legacy.

5 out of 5 stars Spectacular........2005-07-08

I've read most of Sarton's journals and this is by far the best. Her writing allows the reader to enter her mind. It's so honest, so raw. I've reread Journal of a Solitude a few times over the years; its one of those books to keep on your shelf, and read to get back in touch with the things that matter.

4 out of 5 stars "The War Against The Unregenerate Self Goes On".......2003-04-29

Written over a period of twelve months, May Sarton's Journal Of A Solitude (1973) is a meditation on life, living alone, romantic love, and the creative process. Composed in diary form, the book was produced while Sarton was living alone in a small village in rural New Hampshire. By 1973, Sarton was fifty - eight years of age and an established novelist and poet who had known and corresponded with such literary luminaries as Virginia Woolf and Hilda Doolittle. Journal Of A Solitude is a warm, touching, very human book, which, after its successful publication, became the cornerstone upon which Sarton's uneasy reputation has settled. But Journal Of A Solitude also reveals Sarton to have been something of an odd duck modestly dressed in the clothing, mores, and mannerisms of a gentile Belgian lady. Sadly, what Sarton seems determined not to come to terms with is that she was a tepid, literal - minded poet as well as a less than first- rate literary novelist; this is important, because the lack of critical attention her work received ("What I have not had is the respect due what is now a considerable opus") is a constant theme of the book and source of tension. As a result, "ornery" Sarton shifts continuously between states of creative over appraisal and damning self - recrimination. Sarton's quoted poems clearly reveal a lack of lyrical skill and an absence of any visionary power whatsoever. Though she states, "Whatever peace I know rests in the natural world," Journal Of A Solitude also reveals a tender - hearted animal lover and enthusiastic gardener who nonetheless appears to lack a higher sense of nature as a symbol, sign, or metaphor for the transcendent forces evident in human reality.

Badly advised by friend and poet Louise Bogan to "keep the Hell" out of her work, Sarton, accepting Bogan's suggestion, struggles daily with a devastating, irrational temper, depression serious enough to drive her to suicidal states, loneliness, and, at only fifty - eight, a sense of herself as "old, dull, and useless." Sarton, who appears to have surprisingly little self - knowledge for a person of her maturity, is haunted by reoccurring image of "plants, bulbs, in the cellar, trying to grow without light, putting out white shoots that will inevitably wither," but doesn't consciously relate this image directly to herself or her difficult present. When a close friend visits for several days, Sarton is incensed when the woman makes an offhand comment about the faded state of a vase of flowers (though as the photographs included reveal, flower arranging was not among Sarton's talents). Clearly, some or most of Sarton's "hell" should have gone into and fueled her creative work, as it does in the case of most artists. Is appears that there were many things in her life that Sarton simply didn't want to confront or acknowledge.

Sarton makes contradictory statements about God and her religious beliefs, commenting first that writing poetry is her method of communicating with God, but later states, "I am not a believer." Though she frequently writes at length about the emancipation of women and the need for the abolition of gender roles, she also makes generalized statements like "nurturing is women's work," and believes that "blacks" have the "grace and instinct and intuitive understanding" necessary for the nursing profession. Today, Sarton's expression "we have so much to learn from them ("blacks")" sounds like well - intended but unconsciously smug pandering.

Sarton was not an intellectual, but the limited perspective cumulatively elaborated in her novels and poetry found a ready audience in "nice" like - minded women for whom more challenging authors like Muriel Spark, Isak Dinesen, Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys, Katherine Anne Porter, or Jane Bowles apparently represented an arduous uphill climb. What the book does illustrate is the danger of making an unquestioning habit of "impeccable" WASP manners and politeness over a lifetime. Sarton, her close friends, and colleagues all appear to exist in a brittle world where truthful communication and direct, honest criticism are to be strenuously avoided in the name of continued social niceties.

Sadly, the success of Journal Of A Solitude had an ultimately negative effect on Sarton's career, as she began producing journal volume after journal volume (Recovering, At Seventy, After The Stroke, Endgame: A Journal Of The Seventy-ninth Year, etc.), of which only The House By The Sea, which immediately followed the present volume, had the same freshness, integrity, and lack of self - consciousness. Sarton was soon to become a cottage industry for her publishers, turning out further volumes of banal poetry -- "Moose In The Morning" -- and, like Edith Sitwell in old age, simply publishing too much without due editorial consideration.

Journal Of A Solitude does reflect a genuine, shadow - casting human presence as well as a state of being which many people, especially the creative, the introverted, and those moving uncertainly towards later life may respond to fully. Sarton's moments of anxiety, despair, and doubt, as well as her stoicism, fortitude, and courage, are sincerely expressed, touching, and inspiring. Sarton accurately perceived herself to be country - loving, intelligent, and serenity - seeking individual who put a high premium on the simpler aspects of life. But for an author who had over twenty books published by 1973 and who was on a first - name basis with some of literature's most notoriously critical figures, Sarton was a surprisingly unsophisticated person. As a result, it is the fallible human being, and not the creative writer, who shines most brightly in Journal Of A Solitude.
Learning to Love: Exploring Solitude and Freedom (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton)
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • The struggle of transcending one's self
  • Beautiful and very human
  • The delimma between what you should do and what you want to
  • A Brilliant Honest man
  • In the usual style of Fr. Louie
Learning to Love: Exploring Solitude and Freedom (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton)
Thomas Merton
Manufacturer: Harper San Francisco
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

GeneralGeneral | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ReligiousReligious | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ReligiousReligious | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
FaithFaith | Christian Living | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Specific Congregations & OrdersSpecific Congregations & Orders | Congregations & Orders | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
MonasticismMonasticism | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
GeneralGeneral | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
GeneralGeneral | Spirituality | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
GeneralGeneral | Merton, Thomas | ( M ) | Authors, A-Z | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
HardcoverHardcover | Merton, Thomas | ( M ) | Authors, A-Z | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:
  1. The Other Side of the Mountain: The End of the Journey (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton) The Other Side of the Mountain: The End of the Journey (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton)
  2. Dancing in the Water of Life (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton) Dancing in the Water of Life (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton)
  3. Entering the Silence: Becoming a Monk and a Writer (The Journals of Thomas Merton, V. 2) Entering the Silence: Becoming a Monk and a Writer (The Journals of Thomas Merton, V. 2)
  4. A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk's True LifeThe Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 3: 1952-1960 (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton) A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk's True LifeThe Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 3: 1952-1960 (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton)
  5. Run to the Mountain: The Story of a VocationThe Journal of Thomas Merton, Volume 1: 1939-1941 (The Journals of Thomas Merton, V. 1) Run to the Mountain: The Story of a VocationThe Journal of Thomas Merton, Volume 1: 1939-1941 (The Journals of Thomas Merton, V. 1)

ASIN: 0060654848

Book Description

The sixth volume of Thomas Merton's acclaimed journals is the most revealing and unpredictable yet as the cloistered Merton falls in love with a beautiful young nurse. Revealed here in its entirety for the first time, Merton's passion spills across the pages as he struggles to reconcile this unexpected love with his monastic vows.

Spanning from 1966 to 1967, Learning to Love finds Merton in his mt active period. Troubled by events at home and abroad, he expresses anger at wars in Vietnam and the Middle East and outrage at racism and injustice in American society. At his intellectual peak, he reads widely and voraciously, carries on an active global correspondence, receives such high profile friends as Joan Baez, Jacques Maritain and Thich Nhat Hanh, and writes insightful essays on topics from Zen Buddhism and Vatican II to the works of Albert Camus all the while penning poignant love poems for M., furtively calling her from the monastary and arranging to meet with her, all the while searching his soul for answers to his crisis of the heart that has "made a mess out of everything."

Inevitably, the affair is discovered, and Merton is forced to acknowledge the consequences of his situation. Bewildered and desperate, he reassesses his need for love and his commitment to celibacy and the monastic vocation and discovers, painfully, that the only possibile solitude is "the solitude of the frail, mortal, limited, distressed, rebellious human person, made of his love and fears, facing his own true present." Revealing Merton to be "very human" in his chronicles of the ectasy and torment of being in love, Learning to Lovecomes full circle as he recommits himself completely and more deeply to his vocation the very "root-fact of my existence" with a new and deeper understanding of the nature of both wordly and spiritual love.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars The struggle of transcending one's self.......2006-07-04

If there is anything this book has taught me, it is that there is no escape from the human condition. No matter if you are living as a monk in the woods or living in the midst of 9-5 city life, there is no real sanctuary from the struggles of humanity. Merton's writings on his struggles to reconcile his desires and remain true to his vows are enlightening. These are the struggles that all of us face, in one form or another. You can't help but love and appreciate Merton, the man, found in this journal.

5 out of 5 stars Beautiful and very human.......2004-11-13

This was actually the first I ever read or heard of Merton. I read this book at a time when I was going through a bit of a struggle myself in regards to who I was and what I believed. I was raised Catholic, but no longer felt that I had any place in the Church and then I felt guilty for having those feelings. What Merton does so beautifully and bravely is to show his own struggles and his own humanity to the world. He struggles with the idea of being a hermit vs his desire to change the world; with his love and devotion to the Church vs his love of a woman; with his need for solitude vs. his need to be surrounded by other intelligent, compassionate minds. It's a fascinating read. I think one of the things that struck me most about it was how unselfconsciously he writes about what he's going through. It's not a book overflowing with self-judgment or condemnation. On the contrary, it's a book filled with the idea that he is as human as the rest of us and has the same flaws and desires, yet what he does with those flaws and desires is really up to him. That's no small discovery. It's one we could all stand to make about ourselves.

5 out of 5 stars The delimma between what you should do and what you want to.......2004-03-10

"Learning to Love" captures the ache of forbidden love better than any work I have ever read. Merton's honesty, as mentioned in the other reviews, sets the gold standard for how we should converse with ourselves and with God. Ultimately, through meditation and prayer, Merton decides that his affair has opened his heart so that it holds a greater love for God, and the experience of going against his vows humbles him.

Anyone who is a true believer, who struggles to live that belief in daily life and who tries to reconcile the faith and the heart will enjoy this book. I can also recommend this book to people who are interested in journaling, as a example of "getting to the heart of matter" (Graham Greene) and to people who want a good introduction to Thomas Merton. I have gone on to read a number of his journals and his other books. He is most well-known for Seven Story Mountain. The Merton in that book is far younger and more naïve than the erudite and humble Merton displayed in these pages. Had I read Seven Story Mountain first, I never would have picked up another Merton book. Luckily for me, I picked this Merton book up first.

5 out of 5 stars A Brilliant Honest man.......2001-06-11

here is the volume that was much anticipated, the volume of Thomas Merton's diaries that dealt with his "love affair" with a young nurse, Margie Smith. By this point in the diaries, Merton has become a full time hermit{as someone once remarked, the busiest,most voluminous hermit in history. Or,as Merton wrly titled one of his diaries, A VOW OF CONVERSATION}. Moving further away from the obdient young novice of volume 2,Merton as always in full tonged battles with his Abbot,James Fox,,has been exploring eastern religions,trying to find the center which unites all. Then, he goes to a louisville hospital to have back surgery,and falls deeply in love with a young nurse. Always honest with himself,Merton knows where this is heading, and knows, even in his early entries, that this will not end well for her. There is a sweet episode when Joan Baez arrives,and after Merton tells her about his new love, insists that they drive straight away to Loiuisville to go to her{they do not.}There is nothing salacious here,and Merton comes to grips with his poor treatment of woman in his early life{he had fathered a child in London, and mother and son had died during the blitz in WWII},and finds another side in himself. Interspersed within this is the usual Merton gold, the ability to see through modern problems for what they are{fleeting}, and come up with crystalline insights{his commenst on his prayer life while he is essentialy leading ,for him, a compromised life, are very interestin.] This is top flight Merton, now on the top step, cleansed and looking east,where on the horizon, is the next and last volume, and the Asian journey. Essential,non-sensational,always edifying.

5 out of 5 stars In the usual style of Fr. Louie.......2001-05-01

As usual, his journal style leads me into deep contemplation, but his honesty in dealing with all issues reminds the reader that he is a man before a monk or priest. I reccommend this book to all Seminary Students and those seeking quiet prayer and contemplation.
A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk's True LifeThe Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 3: 1952-1960 (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton)
Average customer rating: 3 out of 5 stars
  • Valuable insights into Merton through the 1950's.
A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk's True LifeThe Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 3: 1952-1960 (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton)
Thomas Merton
Manufacturer: HarperOne
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

GeneralGeneral | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ReligiousReligious | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ReligiousReligious | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
FaithFaith | Christian Living | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
GeneralGeneral | Christian Living | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
MonasticismMonasticism | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
GeneralGeneral | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
GeneralGeneral | Spirituality | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
GeneralGeneral | Merton, Thomas | ( M ) | Authors, A-Z | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
PaperbackPaperback | Merton, Thomas | ( M ) | Authors, A-Z | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:
  1. Entering the Silence: Becoming a Monk and a Writer (The Journals of Thomas Merton, V. 2) Entering the Silence: Becoming a Monk and a Writer (The Journals of Thomas Merton, V. 2)
  2. Run to the Mountain: The Story of a VocationThe Journal of Thomas Merton, Volume 1: 1939-1941 (The Journals of Thomas Merton, V. 1) Run to the Mountain: The Story of a VocationThe Journal of Thomas Merton, Volume 1: 1939-1941 (The Journals of Thomas Merton, V. 1)
  3. Dancing in the Water of Life (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton) Dancing in the Water of Life (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton)
  4. The Other Side of the Mountain: The End of the Journey (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton) The Other Side of the Mountain: The End of the Journey (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton)
  5. Learning to Love: Exploring Solitude and Freedom (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton) Learning to Love: Exploring Solitude and Freedom (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton)

ASIN: 0060654791

Book Description

The third volume of Thomas Merton's journals chronicles Merton's attempts to reconcile his desire for solitude and contemplation with the demands of his new-found celebrity status within the strictures of conventional monastic life.

Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars Valuable insights into Merton through the 1950's........1997-10-17

Volume three of the complete journals of Thomas Merton - A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk's True Life, edited by Lawrence S. Cunningham - follows on from where volume two ended with an entry dated July 25, 1952 and concludes in May 1960.

The title given to this volume does not reflect the turbulence Merton was experiencing in the years covered by this journal. "Searching for Solitude" and "Pursuing the Monk's True Life" were not easy tasks for Thomas Merton. In The Sign of Jonas Merton battles with his dual vocations of being a solitary and a writer and, by the end of the journal, having discovered solitude both through writing and through his work as Master of Scholastics, the impression Merton gives in his masterful epilogue to Jonas, "Fire Watch, July 4, 1952", is that his problems over his vocation have been resolved. As Michael Mott and William Shannon have made clear in their biographies of Merton this was certainly not true. As Shannon notes, "The Sign of Jonas ends when the struggle is just beginning to warm up" for Merton's "most serious crisis of stability yet" and this is where the third volume of journals begins.

Beginning with July 1952 this volume goes up to March 1953 where there is a break up until July 17, 1956 when the journal begins again. Cunningham provides no explanation for the missing years simply stating Merton "kept rather brief journal entries in the last months of 1952 and in 1953, with a hiatus in 1954-1955." (xiii) My major criticism of this volume is that no attempt at an explanation is provided for this hiatus. Patrick Hart, General Editor of these journals, has pointed out that the policy decision was made to publish Merton's journals in their entirety and that the publishers did not wish them to have more than the bare minimum in the way of footnotes to avoid them appearing like "a German doctoral dissertation." The lack of comment on Merton's hiatus of the mid fifties is taking this policy to an extreme and does not help the reader.

From biographies of Merton it is possible to fill in the events of these "missing years" and to find the reason for the hiatus. In early 1953 Merton agreed to a request of Gabriel Sortais, Abbot General of the Cistercian Order, that he cease keeping a journal and l the lack of journal writings from 1953 through to 1956 suggests that Merton was obeying Sortais's wishes.

In the fifties Merton experienced three major periods of instability, two of these, in 1953 and 1959 are covered in A Search for Solitude the other, from 1955 falls into the period when Merton was not keeping a journal but it can be traced in Mott's biography. These periods of instability show Merton's struggle with his vocation and with self doubt, struggles which are not found in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. The instability Merton writes of in his own life is an instability which has come to characterise the final decades of this century. Merton's writing in this journal serve as a witness to the qualities which sustained him through these profound periods of instability, especially a deep sense of obedience and a committment to his search for God and for truth.

In the late summer of 1952 Merton mentions three options he is considering as possibilities for greater solitude - the Carthusians, the Camaldolese or the possibility of a separate scholasticate. As Merton's crises in The Sign of Jonas had led to opportunities for greater solitude at Gethsemani so, in response to his 1952 crisis Dom James allowed Merton to use a disused toolshed in the Gethsemani woods for limited periods of time. Merton called the toolshed St. Anne's and writes that "St. Anne's is what I have been waiting for and looking for all my life" adding "everything that was ever real in me has come back to life in this doorway wide open to the sky!" (32.)

Merton's second major crisis of the fifties began in the early summer of 1955 and, though not covered in A Search for Solitude, it is worth mentioning briefly in this review as it highlights a pattern in Merton's life, a pattern very evident in this volume of Merton's journals. A visiting abbot had complained of a "hermit mentality" in the community and swept away some of the priviledges Dom James had arranged to provide Merton with more solitude. This led to Merton's application for a transitus to the Camaldolese in June 1955. Following on from this crisis of stability there followed a period of stability for Merton until in 1958 he began actively looking into opportunities once again to become a hermit and in November 1959 applied for an exclaustration to go to Mexico to become a hermit near the Benedictine monastery of Cuernavaca. When Merton's request was turned down he accepted the decision with relief and writes the next day of "a very great peace and gratitude at knowing that I have really, at last, found my definite place and that I have no further need to look, to seek, except in my own heart." (360) As with Merton's earlier crises of stability this crisis led to changes in this position at Gethsemani. In March 1960 Merton was given a quiet cell of his own in the monastery and plans were also begun for a cinder block building that would eventually become Merton's hermitage.

Merton's relentless "search for solitude" is central to this third volume of his journals. Other themes found in the earlier two volumes are present as well as many new themes. A good part of Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander was written in the period covered by A Search for Solitude and so the development of Merton's thought can be seen through comparing this journal with Conjectures. Events and themes which would later be worked up for inclusion in Conjectures are here in their raw state. In particular Merton's expanding horizons over the latter years of this journal are striking. As Merton searched for a solitary life he was also asking questions about the monk's relationship to the world, realising that his solitary vocation was not merely "cuddling in self-love" (298) but involved a "responsibility to be in all reality a peacemaker in the world." (149) These years also saw the great expansion in Merton's correspondence and the influence of his correspondents upon him is profound. Of particular note in this journal is Merton's reflections on his contact with Boris Pasternak and his correspondence with Latin American writers. Merton's correspondence has been published elsewhere but the shockwaves from it permeate the second half of this journal. Reflecting on the effect of this correspondence upon him Merton writes:
Like Dick Whittington turning again at the sound of Bow bells, because London was his life and vocation and fortune. I have "turned again" at the voice of the Andes and of the Sertao and of the Pampas and of Brazil. (169)

Merton concludes this journal saying "I know you are leading me, and therefore there is no conflict with anyone. Nor can there be" (394) and yet, having accompanied him on his search for solitude and his pursuit of the monk's true life through these pages, having shared with Merton his struggles and his solaces, we know all too well that his search will continue along with his struggles.

Selected Letters of Charles Baudelaire: The Conquest of Solitude
Average customer rating: Not rated
    Selected Letters of Charles Baudelaire: The Conquest of Solitude
    Charles Baudelaire
    Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Hardcover

    GeneralGeneral | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
    GeneralGeneral | Essays | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
    GeneralGeneral | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books | Classics | Comic | Contemporary | Literary
    FrenchFrench | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
    GeneralGeneral | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
    Continental EuropeanContinental European | Single Authors | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
    FrenchFrench | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
    GeneralGeneral | British | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
    Baudelaire, CharlesBaudelaire, Charles | ( B ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
    Letters & CorrespondenceLetters & Correspondence | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
    All TitlesAll Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
    Biographies & MemoirsBiographies & Memoirs | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
    Literature & FictionLiterature & Fiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
    Similar Items:
    1. Intimate Journals (Dover Books on Literature & Drama) Intimate Journals (Dover Books on Literature & Drama)
    2. The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire
    3. The Painters of Modern Life (Arts & Letters) The Painters of Modern Life (Arts & Letters)
    4. On Wine and Hashish (Hesperus Classics) On Wine and Hashish (Hesperus Classics)

    ASIN: 0226039285

    Book Description

    Undeniably one of the modern world's greatest literary figures, Charles Baudelaire (1821-67) left behind a correspondence documenting in intimate detail a life as intense in its extremes as his poetry. This extensive selection of his letters—many translated for the first time into English—depicts a poet divided between despair and elation, thoughts of suicide and intimations of immortality; a man who could write to his mother, "We're obviously destined to love one another, to end our lives as honestly and gently as possible," and say in the next sentence, "I'm convinced that one of us will kill the other"; who courted and then suffered the controversy provoked by his masterpiece, Les Fleurs du mal; who struggled throughout his life with syphilis contracted in his youth, near-intolerable financial restrictions imposed by his stepfather, and conflicting feelings of failure and revolt dating from his school days.

    Writing to family, friends, and lovers, Baudelaire reveals the incidents and passions that went into his poetry. In letters to editors, idols, and peers—Hugo, Flaubert, Vigny, Wagner, Cladel, among others—he elucidates the methods and concerns of his own art and criticism and comments tellingly on the arts and politics of his day. In all, ranging from childhood to days shortly before his death, these letters comprise a complex and moving portrait of the quintessential poet and his time.
    Rogue River Journal: A Winter Alone
    Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    • Hot and cold
    • Rogue River Journal: A Winter Alone
    • Great story...
    • We're never alone, even when we're by ourselves
    • It's all about remembering
    Rogue River Journal: A Winter Alone
    John Daniel
    Manufacturer: Shoemaker & Hoard
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Hardcover

    AuthorsAuthors | Arts & Literature | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
    GeneralGeneral | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
    WestWest | Regional U.S. | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
    MemoirsMemoirs | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
    GeneralGeneral | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books
    Natural HistoryNatural History | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books
    OregonOregon | State & Local | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
    Similar Items:
    1. Looking After: A Son's Memoir Looking After: A Son's Memoir
    2. Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America's Most Hopeful Landscape:Vermont's Champlain Valley and New York's Adirondacks (Crown Journeys) Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America's Most Hopeful Landscape:Vermont's Champlain Valley and New York's Adirondacks (Crown Journeys)
    3. Winter Creek: One Writer's Natural History (Credo) Winter Creek: One Writer's Natural History (Credo)
    4. The Golden Spruce: A True Story Of Myth, Madness, And Greed The Golden Spruce: A True Story Of Myth, Madness, And Greed
    5. The Solace of Open Spaces The Solace of Open Spaces

    ASIN: 1593760515

    Book Description

    In November of 2000, after the presidential election but before the results were handed down by the Supreme Court, John Daniel climbed into his pickup, drove to a cabin in the Red River Gorge, and quit civilization for a proscribed time. The strictures set up were severe: no two-way human communications, no radio, no music, no news, no clocks, and no calendars. The award-winning writer left his wife behind and moved into a cabin sure to be snowed-in just after his arrival, where he lived in complete isolation until spring, without even his cat as a companion.

    He was intent on not hearing a human voice other than his own for the next six months. Thoreau's Journals were there, of course, for instruction and inspiration. In addition to the physical rigor of working in isolation, Daniel had assumed a hard spiritual task in deciding to live alone: to confront his now dead father. Rogue River Journal is the result, with writing as skilled as Jon Krakauer's—a remarkable memoir of both vivid present and past interwoven.

    Customer Reviews:

    3 out of 5 stars Hot and cold.......2006-11-25

    The book has four themes: journal and musings while in the Oregon wilderness, auto biography, and father's biography. It's tough to write an interesting journal - face it, most lives aren't that interesting. Daniel has led an interesting life, but not that interesting. I enjoyed spending time with him in the wilderness, became bored with his reflections on his self-absorbed youth, and had to go for my own solitary walk to escape his musings on current politics - sorry, not interested in ruminations on Bill Clinton and Monica, the decriminalization of drugs, and the merits of Bush and Gore.

    The sections on his father and the labor movement were fascinating and hope that Daniel can work through the emotional issues enough to write a full, more dispassionalte biography.

    There are plenty of great nuggets to mine here, for example his experience as a choker in Washington forest, and having many fathers, that make the book worth reading. But often I could almost hear Franz Daniel saying, that's enough John, now get out and DO something.

    5 out of 5 stars Rogue River Journal: A Winter Alone.......2006-10-02

    I was encouraged to read this book by the cover quote from Mary Oliver and was rewarded appropriately. A beautifully written, thoughtful journey of self discovery. And a special gift at the end for anyone exploring their own path in becoming a writer, the author offers insight and direction that resonates as true.

    5 out of 5 stars Great story..........2006-08-25

    This is a great 'get-away' book. It conveys what it must really be like to be alone in the wilderness for months, in a beautiful place, and the journey of a person's thoughts without the distractions of modern life. It also is a powerful story about the author's relationship with his father. Highly recommended.

    4 out of 5 stars We're never alone, even when we're by ourselves.......2005-08-01

    I loved this book, and I'm glad the author brought us along on his journey. I have often wondered what it would be like to take off for awhile, and leave the bustle of everyday life behind.

    From reading I discovered that I would never really be alone, because all of the people that I have been fortunate to know have shaped my life. They are part of me, and hopefully I am part of them. Our friends and family are there in spirit all of time - good and bad. It all makes up a portion of the fabric which is us, which makes nothing bad. It's all good.

    The natural setting for the adventure is top-notch, and I do plan on exploring the Rogue River. I certainly need to bring my fly-rod.

    Thanks for sharing your life with us, John.

    4 out of 5 stars It's all about remembering.......2005-06-06

    Poet and nonfiction writer John Daniel spent four and a half months living by himself in a cabin in the Rogue River canyon of southwestern Oregon. Though his original intent was to go there to write, he did some nature observation and terrain exploration as well. He chose to make his retreat during the winter of 2000-2001, beginning just after election day. We who were stuck back here in civilization can only envy his self-made cocoon of quiet, blissfully removed from the incessant media analysis of the Bush-Gore-Florida quandry. We can merely shake our heads, remembering.

    Memory comes into play quite a bit here. After taking care of his immediate needs and taking in the natural world around him, Daniel spends much of his alone time considering the past. Or two pasts, really: his father's and his own. Something he sees or thinks about at the cabin will remind him of something else from the past, and he follows that tangent. He writes about his father and traces the man's work in the American labor movement as well as his struggle with alcoholism. At the same time, he reveals much about his own life and about growing up in a 1960s culture that was both anti-Vietnam and pro-drugs. "Rogue River Journal" is as much about Daniel's voyage of self-discovery as it is a temporary escape from society. By the end of his sojourn, it seems as if he has come to terms with all of it: his relationship with his father, his own varied and sometimes illegal activities of his younger days, his writing career, even the choice to enforce this self-imposed confinement. Daniel gets *very* personal, yet this is not a pure autobiography. It's funny, it's sad, it's thought-provoking, it's Life.

    Daniel writes, "I thought I might find two books here -- one about the experience of solitude, the other the story of my coming of age and my father. From the start though, the two wanted to loop and weave together, and I saw no reason, and see none now, to discourage their union." (p. 301) The result honors both men. Obviously Franz Daniel passed the story-telling gene onto his son John. He has a knack for offering vivid descriptions and the tales to go with them, knowing just when to bring one segment to a temporary close so that we'll want to turn the page to discover what happened next. Baby Boomer readers will have no problem reminiscing on their own, inspired by Daniel's candid ruminations. This book is more contemplative than most "Walden" wannabees.

    John Daniel uncovers two truths for us: We need occasional solitude in order to understand who we are as individuals. And we also need distance from the past in order to comprehend its contribution to our personalities and lives. Thanks for the reminders, John!
    THE HARVARD CLASSICS: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN; THE JOURNAL OF JOHN WOOLMAN; FRUITS OF SOLITUDE
    Average customer rating: Not rated
      THE HARVARD CLASSICS: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN; THE JOURNAL OF JOHN WOOLMAN; FRUITS OF SOLITUDE
      Franklin; Woolman & Penn
      Manufacturer: Grolier Enterprises Corp. 1991
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Hardcover

      Franklin, BenjaminFranklin, Benjamin | ( F ) | People, A-Z | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
      ASIN: B000N8RJ12
      Harvard Classics, Deluxe Edition, The Autobiography of Benjsamin Franklin .. The Journal of John Woolman .. Fruits of Solitude William Penn
      Average customer rating: Not rated
        Harvard Classics, Deluxe Edition, The Autobiography of Benjsamin Franklin .. The Journal of John Woolman .. Fruits of Solitude William Penn
        Charles W. (editor) .. Franklin, Benjamin .. Woolman, John .. Penn, William Eliot
        Manufacturer: P. F. Collier & Son
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Leather Bound

        Franklin, BenjaminFranklin, Benjamin | ( F ) | People, A-Z | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
        ASIN: B000KHFSXC
        SPOT IN THE DARK (OSU JOURNAL AWARD POETRY)
        Average customer rating: Not rated
          SPOT IN THE DARK (OSU JOURNAL AWARD POETRY)
          BETH GYLYS
          Manufacturer: Ohio State University Press
          ProductGroup: Book
          Binding: Hardcover

          20th Century20th Century | Poetry | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
          GeneralGeneral | Poetry | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
          GeneralGeneral | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
          United StatesUnited States | Single Authors | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
          ASIN: 0814209815
          The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin / The Journal of John Woolman / Fruits of Solitude (The Harvard Classics Volume 1)
          Average customer rating: Not rated
            The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin / The Journal of John Woolman / Fruits of Solitude (The Harvard Classics Volume 1)
            Benjamin Franklin , John Woolman , and William Penn
            Manufacturer: P. F. Collier
            ProductGroup: Book
            Binding: Hardcover

            Woolman, JohnWoolman, John | ( W ) | Authors, A-Z | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
            Franklin, BenjaminFranklin, Benjamin | ( F ) | People, A-Z | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
            ASIN: B000GZM98K
            THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN / THE JOURNAL OF JOHN WOOLMAN / FRUITS OF SOLITUDE WILLIAM PENN
            Average customer rating: Not rated
              THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN / THE JOURNAL OF JOHN WOOLMAN / FRUITS OF SOLITUDE WILLIAM PENN

              Manufacturer: P. F. Collier & Son
              ProductGroup: Book
              Binding: Hardcover

              Franklin, BenjaminFranklin, Benjamin | ( F ) | People, A-Z | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
              ASIN: B000E3DTU6

              Books:

              1. Kierkegaard for Beginners (Writers and Readers Documentary Comic Book)
              2. Kingdom of Fear : Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century
              3. Light My Fire (Aisling Grey, Guardian, Book 3)
              4. Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude: How to Find, Build and Keep a YES! Attitude for a Lifetime of SUCCESS (Jeffrey Gitomer's Little Books)
              5. Little House (9 Books, Boxed Set)
              6. Martin Van Buren : The Romantic Age of American Politics (Signature Series)
              7. Mary Chesnut's Civil War
              8. Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography
              9. My Life in France
              10. NeuroTheology: Brain, Science, Spirituality, Religious Experience

              Books Index

              Books Home

              Recommended Books

              1. Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective 2006
              2. The Road to Arnhem: A Screaming Eagle in Holland
              3. Living Wage : Building a Fair Economy
              4. Intermediate Accounting, Volume 2
              5. Power Pricing
              6. The Ultimate Math Refresher for the GRE, GMAT, and SAT
              7. Simplified Strategic Planning: A No-Nonsense Guide for Busy People Who Want Results Fast!
              8. Good to Great CD: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't
              9. Purchasing and Supply Chain Management: Strategies and Realities
              10. Aboriginal Plant Use in Canada's Northwest Boreal Forest