Overview
In 1960, five young men arrived at the imposing gates of Parkminster, the largest centre 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 behaviour 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.
Full Product Details
Author: Nancy Maguire
Publisher: PublicAffairs,U.S.
Imprint: PublicAffairs,U.S.
Edition: New edition
Dimensions:
Width: 14.40cm
, Height: 1.90cm
, Length: 21.00cm
Weight: 0.416kg
ISBN: 9781586484323
ISBN 10: 158648432
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 13 March 2007
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
Maguire has produced a vivid, gripping and deeply touching picture of a world that is now lost. For an outsider to enter such a closed society and to capture its essence is an astonishing achievement: this is a work of history, but it has all the best qualities of a psychological novel. Diarmiud MacCullogh It is fascinating to enter, if only for a few hours, into this way of life, where extreme devotion forms at last a bit of a bulwark against humanity's digressions. Los Angeles Times
"""Maguire has produced a vivid, gripping and deeply touching picture of a world that is now lost. For an outsider to enter such a closed society and to capture its essence is an astonishing achievement: this is a work of history, but it has all the best qualities of a psychological novel."" Diarmiud MacCullogh ""It is fascinating to enter, if only for a few hours, into this way of life, where extreme devotion forms at last a bit of a bulwark against humanity's digressions."" Los Angeles Times"""
Author Information
Nancy Klein Maguire is the author of numerous publications on the relationship of theatre and politics in the seventeenth century. She frequently reviews books, most recently for the Los Angeles Times Book Review. She has been a Scholar-in- Residence at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, since 1983.
