• The Seven Storey Mountain

  • By: Thomas Merton
  • Narrated by: Sidney Lanier
  • Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (1,397 ratings)

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The Seven Storey Mountain  By  cover art

The Seven Storey Mountain

By: Thomas Merton
Narrated by: Sidney Lanier
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Publisher's summary

The Seven Storey Mountain is the extraordinary spiritual testament of Thomas Merton (1915-1968), a man who experienced life to its fullest in the world before entering a Trappist monastery. By the end of his life, he had become one of the 20th century's best-known and beloved Christian voices. This autobiography deals...not with what happens to a man, but what happens inside his soul.

Public Domain (P)2009 Phoenix

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Letter to Audible

There is a wonderful recorded version in full by the late and great Wolfram Kandinsky. It was rented on cassette by Books On Tape. Can't Audible make that available to us?

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95 people found this helpful

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Woefully incomplete audio version of a great work

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Unless you want only the cliff notes of Merton's story and development of his ideas, this audio version is a waste of your time. I have the book (have not read it) and hoped this would cover it, but it doesn't. Feel cheated. Abridged obviously suggests that some portions are omitted, but it feels like more than 50% of the book is omitted although I have not done a detailed assessment to say the omission is closer to 25 or 75%, but a quick at the final chapters suggests its at least 50%.

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72 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Missing paragraphs

I like the story but it skips over a lot of paragraphs and I really hate that. Get this updated.

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55 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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As a Secular Humanist, I Gleaned a lot from This

I took a class in college in Contemplative Writing. When we spoke about Thomas Merton, I asked a rare question for me, "Was this required reading?" To my happiness, the answer was no. We read a ton in that class. May Sarton and Gail Sher, Rilke and Rumi, and tons of self selected works of our choosing. Many of the students were reading and referring to Merton, but I wrote it off as their religiosity. We happened to be in Kentucky and took a visit to Gethsemane as well as Sister Loretto House. I thought about the nature as being connected to this guy Merton who everyone was talking about. But that was 2012. It took until 2018 for me to read some Merton for myself. I am glad I have.

I don't know if I can convince anyone that I have good reason for my resistance against Catholicism. But I wanted to say all that in the previous paragraph so you understand it has been a strong resistance. Knowing Merton's personal background now has made him in my eyes the exact opposite of a harsh or dogmatic read. Reading about the sad fate of Merton's parents, and especially the artistic upbringing of Merton makes me love the monk and take pride in the fact that I walked in the territory of the offspring of similar birds. If he had always been a Christian, it would have been one thing. But this is, instead, an exploration into the deep substance of life, from the frivolous games of college fraternity life. It is a human story above all else of a man who chose to deafen himself with liquor and noise and mindless interactions, to a man who found something meaningful to care about. There is nothing wrong with that. To have a knee jerk reaction against Catholicism, just shows what wounds I have, but it is not healthy to write off an amazing writer like Merton due to his religious difference any more than I would wish to have someone come and try to convert me from spiritual secularism to atheism. It just is not kind to dismiss someone's narrative and humanity due to their religious preference. So Merton, I am truly sorry.

So when I witnessed Merton praying at the bedside of his father who had passed away, I wanted to know how to pray as he seemed to instinctively know. I wanted to change into a deeper and more contemplative soul.

PS Also, the narrator has a very calm, soft, kind voice.

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Good but the reading not so

Overall a good story but the reading kept putting me to sleep. Also the audio quality had some kind of hissing in the back ground.
I would read this rather than listen to it.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Engaging

There are some passages in this book that took my breath away. I listened several times to the very compelling story of Thomas Merton's life and faith journey. I know I will listen again.

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Modern classic

If you could sum up The Seven Storey Mountain in three words, what would they be?

Thirst for truth

Who was your favorite character and why?

The author

What does Sidney Lanier bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

A sense of what the author's emotional state was for vignettes in the book.

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7 people found this helpful

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Excellent abridged edition

Very well written abridged edition of Merton's life. Read well and catches your attention. I recommend to anyone interested in Merton.

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The start of philosophy is a question.

I think this is an important book for many people searching for Truth. Not just satiation but the true joy that can only come from the full internal understanding of the Truth. It speaks from a position that isn't drawn from brith to be indoctrinated into a way of thinking. Rather Thomas comes from an unlikely background. The intellectual community that for the most part seeks to discredit the immaterial as being non-existent.

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This is abridged

This should be marked as abridged! Is definitely want to hear the full story of his life.

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4 people found this helpful