The Bookshelves Project

Run to the Mountain

When a journal or volume of letters is published--especially if the writer is dead, and the journal or letters in question represent their entire life's output--editors have to make choices about what to include and exlude, or whether to publish the work in its entirety. A few years ago, I read Flannery O'Connor's letters, from which some content and all salutations and closings had been cut ("Hi, Sal....Love, Flannery"). I remember wondering what I was missing, and thinking also that something could be learned from salutations and closings (Just how much did she like this person? How well did they know each other?).

The editors of Thomas Merson's journals, now available in seven large volumes, decided to omit nothing. I own Volume 1, Run to the Mountain, which covers his early adult life and the beginnings of his life in the monastery. Thanks to the editors' decision to be all-inclusive, it also includes list of words he liked when he was reading a book, all the song lyrics he can remember off the top of his head, lists of places he has trouble believing in ("St. Pancras Station," "Australia"), fragmentary jottings about smells and sounds... I bogged down twenty pages in, just like I did last time--the book, purchased in 1996, could be sold "like new" except for my name written inside the cover. Flipping randomly through, I found some lovely things, but I am unwilling to wade through his endless lists, and commentaries on the day, and descriptions of events so elliptical that, untit the annotated edition of the journals comes out, there can be no way for me to know who or what he is referring to.

The editor's introduction mentioned that Merton drew on material from his journals when he was writing books. Perhaps, then, one of the books he wrote during his lifetime, rather than the journals themselves, would be a good place to start reading him.

It's only been in the last few years that I've figured out that some books aren't meant to be read by the casual reader, for enjoyment, but are more useful for study. Unabridged editions of Merton's journals will no doubt prove very useful to Merton scholars. One of them is welcome to my copy of Volume One.