The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness
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Book Summary Information
Reader: Karen ArmstrongEdition: Audio Cassette
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Published: 2004-03
ISBN: 0060587040
Publisher: HarperAudio
Book Reviews of The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness
Book Review: Finding God
Summary: 4 Stars
As a memoir, Armstrong's "The Spiral Staircase" succeeds in the first half. She documents her life in a Catholic convent, her physical challenges and her mental state of mind. Readers wonder, Why would she do this to herself when she was so miserable most of the time? Answer: Her goal was to find God.
Her obsessive journey leads me, and I suppose many other readers, to conclude that she tried too hard. But it's a fascinating story.
The last half of her memoir solves the puzzle of her physical (misinterpreted early in her life as mental) disability. Success follows her discovery, but the book gets tedious with her sometimes repetitious account of daily life and re-learning how to cope with job loss. She eventually finds her niche as a writer by publishing "A History of God," a thoughtful review of many religious cultures.
Armstrong realizes that the study of God does not have to include belief in all the dictates of a specific religion. In fact it need not include belief in God at all. She finds out that the journey is more important than the goal.
Summary of The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness
Karen Armstrong speaks to the troubling years following her decision to leave the life of a Roman Catholic nun and join the secular world in 1969. What makes this memoir especially fascinating is that Armstrong already wrote about this era once---only it was a disastrous book. It was too soon for her to understand how these dark, struggling years influenced her spiritual development, and she was too immature to protect herself from being be bullied by the publishing world. As a result, she agreed to portray herself only in as "positive and lively a light as possible"---a mandate that gave her permission to deny the truth of her pain and falsify her inner experience. The inspiration for this new approach comes from T. S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday, a series of six poems that speak to the process of spiritual recovery. Eliot metaphorically climbs a spiral staircase in these poems---turning again and again to what he does not want to see as he slowly makes progress toward the light. In revisiting her spiral climb out of her dark night of the soul, Armstrong gives readers a stunningly poignant account about the nature of spiritual growth. Upon leaving the convent, Armstrong grapples with the grief of her abandoned path and the uncertainty of her place in the world. On top of this angst, Armstrong spent years suffering from undiagnosed temporal lobe epilepsy, causing her to have frequent blackout lapses in memory and disturbing hallucinations---crippling symptoms that her psychiatrist adamantly attributed to Armstrong's denial of her femininity and sexuality. The details of this narrative may be specific to Armstrong's life, but the meanin! g she makes of her spiral ascent makes this a universally relevant story. All readers can glean inspiration from her insights into the nature of surrender and the possibilities of finding solace in the absence of hope. Armstrong shows us why spiritual wisdom is often a seasoned gift---no matter how much we strive for understanding, we can't force profound insights to occur simply because our publisher is waiting for them. With her elegant, humble and brave voice, she inspires readers to willingly turn our attention toward our false identities and vigilantly defended beliefs in order to better see the truth and vulnerability of our existence. Herein lies the staircase we can climb to enlightenment. --Gail HudsonKaren Armstrong begins this spellbinding story of her spiritual journey with her departure in 1969 from the Roman Catholic convent she had entered seven years before -- hoping, but ultimately failing, to find God. She knew almost nothing of the changed world to which she was returning, and she was tormented by panic attacks and inexplicable seizures.
Armstrong's struggle against despair was further fueled by a string of discouragements -- failed spirituality, doctorate, and jobs; fruitless dealings with psychiatrists. Finally, in 1976, she was diagnosed with epilepsy, given proper treatment, and released from her "private hell." She then began the writing career that would become her true calling, and as she focused on the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, her own inner story began to emerge. Without realizing it, she had embarked on a spiritual quest, and through it she would eventually experience moments of transcendence -- the profound fulfillment that she had not found in long hours of prayer as a young nun.
Powerfully engaging, often heartbreaking, but lit with bursts of humor, The Spiral Staircase is an extraordinary history of self.
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