An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith in the Western World's Most Austere Monastic Order

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PublicAffairs, 2007 M03 13 - 272 pages
In 1960, five young men arrived at the imposing gates of Parkminster, the largest center of the most rigorous and ascetic monastic order in the Western world: the Carthusians. This is the story of their five-year journey into a society virtually unchanged in its behavior and lifestyle since its foundation in 1084. An Infinity of Little Hours is a uniquely intimate portrait of the customs and practices of a monastic order almost entirely unknown until now. It is also a drama of the men's struggle as they avoid the 1960s -- the decade of hedonism, music, fashion, and amorality -- and enter an entirely different era and a spiritual world of their own making. After five years each must face a choice: to make "solemn profession" and never leave Parkminster; or to turn his back on his life's ambition to find God in solitude. A remarkable investigative work, the book combines first-hand testimony with unique source material to describe the Carthusian life. And in the final chapter, which recounts a reunion forty years after the events described elsewhere in the book, Nancy Klein Maguire reveals which of the five succeeded in their quest, and which did not.
 

Contents

one Arrivals July 1960March 1961
9
two The Order 10841965
21
three Parkminster 18831965
37
four Inside the Charterhouse 19601961
45
seven The Long Walk May 8 1961
80
eight Alone March 1962
97
nine Desire Summer 1962
119
eleven Monks Off Pitch
140
thirteen Outside the Walls August 15 1964
164
fourteen Perseverance
172
seventeen
180
September 29October 6 1965
216
Dramatis Personae
239
Glossary of Religious and Monastic Terms
246
Reading Group Guide
259
Copyright

twelve The Noonday Demon April 1964
156

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About the author (2007)

Nancy Klein Maguire is the author of numerous publications on the relationship of theatre and politics in the seventeenth century. She frequently reviews books, most recently for the Los Angeles Times Book Review. She has been a Scholar-in- Residence at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, since 1983.

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