Part 1: Chapter 1, Prisoner's Base Summary and Analysis

The Seven Storey Mountain is well-described by the book's subtitle: An autobiography of faith. It is the story of Thomas James Merton's life from his birth in 1915 until his vow-taking at a Trappist monastery in 1944. It tells the story of a somewhat vagabond and restless youth searching for meaning on two continents and among a constantly-changing world stage. But while the story's setting is expansive and vividly-described—from cathedrals in Rome to cabins in up-state New York, from peaceful, isolated villages in Southern France to Allied bombing over Germany—the setting seldom carries or even affects the thrust of the narrative. The essence of Seven Storey is Merton's slow progress of philosophy and allegiance, in stages, from narcissism to communism to Catholicism to monasticism.

The book's first line reveals the kind of solid...