Waugh v. Merton
I'm now blogging for my local parish. Here's a piece I wrote yesterday about the new collection of correspondence between Evelyn Waugh and Thomas Merton:
The twentieth century was filled with great Catholic literary converts (to read about them, see Joseph Pearce's excellent Literary Converts). Indeed, that era (roughly, 1900 to 1960) is given various names, like “The Catholic Literary Revival” and such. G.K. Chesterton was perhaps the biggest name in that revival, but there's also Ronald Knox, Graham Greene, Alec Guinness, and Malcolm Muggeridge.
And Evelyn Waugh and Thomas Merton.
Those last two are the subject of a new book, Merton and Waugh. A Monk, A Crusty Old Man and The Seven Storey Mountain. It's a collection of correspondence between these two literary giants. It's reviewed here and looks great.
It's interesting that Waugh grew tired of Merton, asserting that Merton was spending too much time on trivial matters: “You are plainly undertaking far too many trivial tasks for small returns ”¦ banging away at your typewriter on whatever turns up.”
It reminds me of a Merton anecdote. The great philosopher Jacques Maritain (who was also a convert, from Judaism/atheism) visited Merton at his (Merton's) Kentucky monastery in the 1960s, hoping for some stimulating conversation. He grew frustrated because Merton kept playing Bob Dylan records in hopes of convincing Maritain that Dylan was an artistic genius. It's funny to picture the puzzled Maritain, growing exasperated at the tomfoolery.
Personally, I think Seven Storey Mountain is an absolute classic and Mystics and Zen Masters a minor classic. After those books, however, the fascinating character that is Thomas Merton drops off precipitously. He published other good things and is always worth reading, but, after those two books, there are too many weeds in his otherwise fertile field.
