A Time To Keep Silence

While still a teenager Patrick Leigh Fermor made his way across Europe asrecounted in his classic memoirs A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods andthe Water Dur... » 

While still a teenager Patrick Leigh Fermor made his way across Europe asrecounted in his classic memoirs A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods andthe Water During World War II he fought with local partisans against theNazi occupiers of Crete. But in A Time to Keep Silence Leigh Fermor writesabout a more inward journey describing his several sojourns in some ofEuropes oldest and most venerable monasteries. He stays at the Abbey of St.Wandrille a great repository of art and learning at Solesmes famous for itsrevival of Gregorian chant and at the deeply ascetic Trappist monastery of LaGrande Trappe where monks take a vow of silence. Finally he visits the rockmonasteries of Cappadocia hewn from the stony spires of a moonlike landscapewhere he seeks some trace of the life of the earliest Christian anchorites.More than a history or travel journal however this beautiful short book is ameditation on the meaning of silence and solitude for modern life. Leigh Fermorwrites In the seclusion of a cellan existence whose quietness is onlyvaried by the silent meals the solemnity of ritual and long solitary walks inthe woodsthe troubled waters of the mind grow still and clear and much thatis hidden away and all that clouds it floats to the surface and can be skimmedaway and after a time one reaches a state of peace that is unthought of in theordinary world. «