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Available
Description
In the mid-twentieth century four American Catholics came to believe that the best way to explore the questions of religious faith was to write about them, in works that readers of all kinds could admire. This book is their story, a vivid and enthralling account of great writers and their power over us. Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk in Kentucky; Dorothy Day the founder of the Catholic Worker in New York; Flannery O'Connor a "Christ-haunted" literary prodigy in Georgia; Walker Percy a doctor in New Orleans who quit medicine to write fiction and philosophy. A friend came up with a name for them--the School of the Holy Ghost--and for three decades they exchanged letters, read one another's books, and grappled with what one of them called a "predicament shared in common." In this book Paul Elie tells these writers' story as a pilgrimage from the God-obsessed literary past of Dante and Dostoevsky out into the thrilling chaos of postwar American life. It is a story of how the Catholic faith, in their vision of things, took on forms the faithful could not have anticipated. And it is a story about the ways we look to great books and writers to help us make sense of our experience, about the power of literature to change--to save--our lives.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member SeriousGrace
What do Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day and Walker Percy have in common? For starters, they are all authors who struggled not only with identity, but religious faith as well. It's this search for religious truth through writing that binds them together. They conducted their searches
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and tested boundaries of Catholicism through the art of writing. Mary Flannery O'Connor began her writing career in Georgia at a very young age and was considered a prodigy by many: Thomas Merton, just a couple of states north in Kentucky began his writing as a Trappist monk who wrote letters about his faith: Dorothy Day, while older than all the others, founded the Catholic Worker newspaper in New York: Walker Percy started out as a doctor in the furthest south of them all, in New Orleans, but quit medicine to become novelist. In time the group became known as the School of the Holy Ghost because of their pursuit of the answers to religion's biggest questions. Paul Elie brings that School of the Holy Ghost back together again in a 2003 book called The Life You Save May Be Your Own containing biographies and literary criticisms of all four writers. Show Less
LibraryThing member revslick
Paul Elie groups together the biographies of four famous Catholic writers - Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Flannery O'Connor, and Walker Percy. He has beautifully shown how they were shaped and help to shape the current culture as well as their particular style of writing about their faith. One
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similarity they all had in their writing was the need for their writing to address faith amidst the backdrop of the murk, mess, and grime of daily life. This is not the fluff and cheese espoused but much of 'Christian' literature today. This is deep wrestling with lived out faith confronting faithlessness and all the grey in between. If you've never heard of the above authors or never read any of their work, my suggestion is skip this book and pick up one. If you have read Day, Merton, O'Connor, or Percy and wish to know how did they begin to write such works of faith then keep Elie's book in mind to discover their struggle. The only caution I have with this book is that he switches back and forth between each author and their work. For me, the switching was done in disjointed intervals and I started to mix particulars. While it was easy to remember the broad strokes of each author's bio; the fun minutiae is often lost in the shuffling back and forth. I wish I would have read each author's bio fully then moved to the next author. Show Less
LibraryThing member auntieknickers
Oh dear, this is the second time I've started to read this book and then had to return it to the library without getting very far. I really should buy it, I think, because it doesn't seem to be the sort of book I want to race through.
LibraryThing member kukulaj
This is a parallel biography of four twentieth century American Catholic writers, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Flannery O'Connor, and Walker Percy. I've read a bit of all except Day, but didn't know much about any of them. Elie does a good job of introducing them and situating them relative to each
Elie doesn't make heroes out of any of them or masterpieces out of any of their work. My big take-away is to read more Dostoyevsky!
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other and to their time. They all knew about each other to one extent or another, exchanging manuscripts or letters or visits. There is surely enough commonality to make them into a coherent collection.Elie doesn't make heroes out of any of them or masterpieces out of any of their work. My big take-away is to read more Dostoyevsky!
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LibraryThing member jwhenderson
Featuring biographies of two of my favorite writers, Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor, this book introduced me to the world of two other religious writer/thinkers, Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day. It also expanded my limited knowledge of Roman Catholicism since I was raised a heathen (Methodist
The book is a rich tapestry that features connections, both curious and serious, between the subject writers. It is this that raises this book above average biographies. Even though the book does not provide the detail that separate biographies might offer, Elie focuses on the essential nature of each writer's personal pilgrimage discussing how they fit into the modern literary tradition. The marriage of Paul Elie's wonderful prose with such fecund material made a biographical exploration of literary and religious ideas one that I can heartily recommend to anyone who enjoys reading.
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version). Of course, these writers were not necessarily orthodox in their religious beliefs, but they were definitely interesting. The book is a rich tapestry that features connections, both curious and serious, between the subject writers. It is this that raises this book above average biographies. Even though the book does not provide the detail that separate biographies might offer, Elie focuses on the essential nature of each writer's personal pilgrimage discussing how they fit into the modern literary tradition. The marriage of Paul Elie's wonderful prose with such fecund material made a biographical exploration of literary and religious ideas one that I can heartily recommend to anyone who enjoys reading.
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LibraryThing member nicholasjjordan
Lovely book about lovely (not at all to say perfect) human lives. It lengthened my books-to-read list by several titles too. I read most of it at about 10 pages a day as a devotional text, and that was great.
LibraryThing member jeterat
A great, enjoyable read covering four major American Catholic writers in the 20th century. Highly recommend to anyone interested in the faith.
ISBN
0374256802 / 9780374256807