THE LESS TRAVELED ROAD

The author, a Trappist monk, has endeavored in this book to explain why it is that in recent years Americans have been drawn in such numbers to the contemplative cloisters. The facts are plain. The Trappist monasteries in the United States, long neglected, are now filled to capacity with young Americans. When a visitor to this country discovered that America, for all its materialism, has more Trappist monks than any other country in the world, he remarked:- ""This flowering of the contemplative life seems to one as important here as atomic research"". Father Raymond looks for an explanation for this phenomenon in the life and work of Frederic M. Dunne, for many years the head and moving spirit of the main Trappist monastery at Gethsemani, Kentucky. But in his story of Dunne's life, the author does not succeed in unveiling the secret of his undoubtedly potent influence in keeping the contemplative life on such a high level as to attract men to it and hold them to it. It is no doubt difficult to dramatize life in a cloister. Only another Merton can achieve the goal. In any event, this author does not succeed in his attempt.