An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith in the Western World's Most Austere Monastic Order

An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith in the Western World's Most Austere Monastic Order
by Nancy Klein Maguire

An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith in the Western World's Most Austere Monastic Order
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Book Summary Information

Author: Nancy Klein Maguire
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2006-02-22
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 258
Publisher: PublicAffairs

Book Reviews of An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith in the Western World's Most Austere Monastic Order

Book Review: A Beautiful Sojourn
Summary: 5 Stars

A nearly perfect book, AN INFINITY OF LITTLE HOURS is one of the best non-fiction works I've read on any subject in some time. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, the book serves as a guide to the austere, eremitic Carthusian life as it was experienced prior to Vatican II. As the author, Nancy Klein Maguire, notes, there's not a lot available for the layperson to read about this order of monks cut off from the world, and whose way of life has changed little since the 11th century. We are truly fortunate, then, to have Maguire as our host for this journey.

Maguire follows the lives of five young men who entered the Parkminster Charterhouse in England in the years 1960 to 1961: three men from the U.S. (Chicago, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn), one from Germany, and another from Ireland. That they do not all stay in the life quickly becomes clear, but wondering who stays and who leaves is part of the charm. (Warning: the photos are spoilers for the ending.) What's really wonderful is how Maguire gives the reader a chance to experience vicariously these men's lives from the point they literally approach the door of the Charterhouse and enter into its life to the time they leave or become professed. We are seduced by the life, but also acutely feel its physical discomforts. We grow with the men as the initial romance wears off, and the political reality of divisions between the monks becomes apparent. In the end, we are enchanted by the monks who persevere in the life, but also embrace the men who leave, fully sharing their relief. Maguire is a gifted writer; her prose is like freshly made butter, smooth and delicious. I think I could read anything she chose to write next, and plan to.

What profoundly struck me in reading Maguire's book was how these men, in entering the Carthusian life presumably to stay to the end of their lives, were essentially preparing for their deaths. At first I found the notion bewildering, even suffocating. I mean, our culture celebrates youth and fears death, doesn't it. Reading this book really made me think a lot about death. Could I forgo all that the world offers, close myself off forever within stone walls, and search for God while awaiting death under the same routine for decades? Happily married and middle aged (the Carthusians don't accept candidates older than 45), I know that the question is moot--but would I have been able to accept the life at 21? And am I ready now to look straight in death's face? How deep is my faith?

If you have any interest at all in the Carthusians or in monasticism, you will want to read this book. It makes a nice companion to the recently released, splendid documentary on the Grande Chartreuse, INTO GREAT SILENCE.

Summary of An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith in the Western World's Most Austere Monastic Order

In 1960, five young men arrived at the imposing gates of Parkminster, the largest center of the most rigorous and ascetic monastic order in the Western world: the Carthusians. This is the story of their five-year journey into a society virtually unchanged in its behavior and lifestyle since its foundation in 1084. An Infinity of Little Hours is a uniquely intimate portrait of the customs and practices of a monastic order almost entirely unknown until now. It is also a drama of the men's struggle as they avoid the 1960s?the decade of hedonism, music, fashion, and amorality?and enter an entirely different era and a spiritual world of their own making. After five years each must face a choice: to make "solemn profession" and never leave Parkminster; or to turn his back on his life's ambition to find God in solitude. A remarkable investigative work, the book combines first-hand testimony with unique source material to describe the Carthusian life. And in the final chapter, which recounts a reunion forty years after the events described elsewhere in the book, Nancy Klein Maguire reveals which of the five succeeded in their quest, and which did not.

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