| Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 37 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1507
Category: Book
Author: Kathleen Norris
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Studio: Riverhead Hardcover
Manufacturer: Riverhead Hardcover
Label: Riverhead Hardcover
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 1594489963
Dewey Decimal Number: 818.5403
EAN: 9781594489969
ASIN: 1594489963
Publication Date: September 16, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Kathleen Norris?s masterpiece: a personal and moving memoir that resurrects the ancient term acedia, or soul-weariness, and brilliantly explores its relevancy to the modern individual and culture.
Kathleen Norris had written several much loved books, yet she couldn?t drag herself out of bed in the morning, couldn?t summon the energy for daily tasks. Even as she struggled, Norris recognized her familiar battle with acedia. She had discovered the word in an early Church text when she was in her thirties. Having endured times of deep soul-weariness since she was a teenager, she immediately recognized that this passage described her affliction: sinking into a state of being unable to care. Fascinated by this ?noonday demon,? so familiar to those in the early and medieval Church, Norris read intensively and knew she must restore this forgotten but utterly relevant and important concept to the modern world?s vernacular.
Like Norris?s bestselling The Cloister Walk, Acedia & me is part memoir and part meditation. As in her bestselling Amazing Grace, here Norris explicates and demystifies a spiritual concept, exploring acedia through the geography of her life as a writer; her marriage and the challenges of commitment in the midst of grave illness; and her keen interest in the monastic tradition. Unlike her earlier books, this one features a poignant narrative throughout of Norris?s and her husband?s bouts with acedia and its clinical cousin, depression. Moreover, her analysis of acedia reveals its burden not just on individuals but on whole societies? and that the ?restless boredom, frantic escapism, commitment phobia, and enervating despair that we struggle with today are the ancient demon of acedia in modern dress.?
An examination of acedia in the light of theology, psychology, monastic spirituality, the healing powers of religious practice, and Norris?s own experience, Acedia & me is both intimate and historically sweeping, brimming with exasperation and reverence, sometimes funny, often provocative, and always important.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 32 more reviews...
 Not very reliable, would not give any stars if program allowed November 23, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
I still have not received my item 10 days after the latest delivery quote. I sent an email to locate my book and have yet to receive a reply.
 READ IT!!! November 20, 2008
No lengthy treatise on this book - that's already been done. Very simply - Mighty good book, which is no surprise seeing that's it Norris - and on a much-ignored and forgotten topic. Read it - it's eye opening.
Acedia and me November 19, 2008
Once again Kathleen Norris shares her life experiences and helps me see new possibilities in my own life.
Beautifully written and touching November 16, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Acedia may not be a word used often in secular society but most Catholics will be familiar with it. Acedia is that feeling that you simply cannot, cannot do this any more. It's boring. I'd rather do something--anything--else. It's too hard to be good every day. Being good requires a hero; not me. Acedia turns up in the spiritual life of anyone on the narrow road, and it's a deadly temptation.
Norris explores acedia, it's closely related cousin, depression, and the long history of her life and marriage in this book, and it makes for absorbing reading.
Problems in her marriage began "as we approached forty. David's habitual use of alcohol as a means of inspiration caught up with him. David...(would) drink anyone else under the table...He would then stay up half the night working...When he began to suffer from drunkenness...he panicked...he felt he would then lose his creativity" (67). He was a poet.
Norris was gradually being drawn into Catholicism, a religion David had long forsaken. A crisis ensued, a threat of suicide, and, at length, the sort of sifting that all marriages experience.
Yet another crisis occurs later on, as Norris and her husband must deal with a medical problem. She speaks of the "ravages of depression" (p 267) and "a ferocious temptation to doubt" (p 257). And yet...and yet..."I can look for the seed of hope in my despair" (p 275).
 Good writing, but pieces are cobbled together and the seams show November 15, 2008
The subtitle hints at a different direction for this interesting but overly-long book: a series or collection of essays on Acedia (Acedia & Me, Acedia & Writing, Monks on Acedia, Acedia & Marriage, etc.).
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