Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life

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Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life

3.68 of 5 stars 3.68 · rating details · 962 ratings · 232 reviews

View our feature on Kathleen Norris’s Acedia & Me.

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 summ...more View our feature on Kathleen Norris’s Acedia & Me.

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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Hardcover, 329 pages

Published September 16th 2008 by Riverhead

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Jan 06, 2009 John rated it 3 of 5 stars

Acedia was identified by a fourth-century monk named Evagrius as one of the eight bad thoughts. It evolved into one of the seven deadly sins.
Acedia is to spiritual health what depression is to mental health. Where depression is fought with therapy and medication, fighting acedia is a matter of spiritual warfare.
This is an oversimplification. To properly describe acedia and the battle with it would require a book. Kathleen Norris has written such a book. She has done so in 300-plus pages; I think...more

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Mar 02, 2009 Jon rated it 3 of 5 stars

I listened to the author read this one, and I'm sure my opinion is somewhat colored by the fact that she is not a particularly good performer, and she has a fairly grating voice. Nevertheless a very interesting book--taking acedia (roughly the Deadly Sin of sloth) very seriously and in fact taking all the deadly sins the same way. She traces its history from one of the eight bad thoughts of the 5th century desert fathers (and, she invariably adds, mothers, although there were precious few of tho...more

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Oct 05, 2012 Tim rated it 5 of 5 stars

After digesting this book for a couple weeks, I realize the analogy is that like the Slow Food movement, this book is meant to be read slowly, in small doses, and savored inbetween. The title, for that matter, gives no real clue as to what it contains - especially the word, Acedia.

So what does it mean? Acedia - a tendency, a demonic attack, a spiritual manifestation, a temptation, a sin, that tends to cause apathy in the face of a call to action, bitterness in the face of conditions that call fo...more After digesting this book for a couple weeks, I realize the analogy is that like the Slow Food movement, this book is meant to be read slowly, in small doses, and savored inbetween. The title, for that matter, gives no real clue as to what it contains - especially the word, Acedia.

So what does it mean? Acedia - a tendency, a demonic attack, a spiritual manifestation, a temptation, a sin, that tends to cause apathy in the face of a call to action, bitterness in the face of conditions that call for thankfulness, a withdrawal when the person or others need connection, boredom instead of appreciation for a routine, etc, etc. The author, Kathleen Norris, seems to spend half of the book circling the term, describing what it is not, what is similar, how the early church monastics viewed and dealt with it, and how today's psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and pharmacologists have touched upon it. She circles, describes, retreats, then returns.

If the tracing of this phenomenon was the only theme of the book, I would have lost interest, but Norris weaves her search and reflections with much more practical aspects of her life of writing and all its challenges, and an even more personal reflection on her marriage, commitment, and grace given through its many decades. Her relationship with her husband becomes poignant as he eventually dies from illness after a number of health crises. Her insights through his slow decline, complete with the ups and downs of gratefulness and depression are rich and demanding. And she ties in life's trials and our responses with the challenge of acedia.

The book is dogeared in so many places (a book that really should be read again) but two examples give a flavor. Pg 42, "... in nurturing a marriage over the span of 30 years, and in keeping to the discipline of writing and revising for even longer, I have often found myself watering dead wood with tears, and very little hope. I have also been astonished by how those tears have allowed life to emerge out of what had seemed dead." Page 245, referring to Oregon poet Stafford, "Writing is like fishing, Stafford would say. A nibble will always come, but all too often we dismiss the little nudge as not worthy of the great works we vaingloriously imagine we will write. In a similar way we block our spiritual progress. The message of salvation that begins as a whisper is easily missed in the noise of passions such as envy, pride, anger, and acedia."(less)

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Aug 12, 2010 Melinda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: christian, church-history, liturgical, philosophy, poetry, 2010, worth-owning

This is another of Kathleen Norris' books, published in 2008, so the most recent of the books she's written. I read "The Quotidian Mysteries" first, then this book, then her others in random order. The text of "The Quotidian Mysteries" is actually about a chapters worth of material in "Acedia and Me", so you see some of the same material over again.

As I mentioned before, reading Kathleen Norris' books is rather like peeling an onion. She discusses many of the same issues in her books, but from s...more This is another of Kathleen Norris' books, published in 2008, so the most recent of the books she's written. I read "The Quotidian Mysteries" first, then this book, then her others in random order. The text of "The Quotidian Mysteries" is actually about a chapters worth of material in "Acedia and Me", so you see some of the same material over again.

As I mentioned before, reading Kathleen Norris' books is rather like peeling an onion. She discusses many of the same issues in her books, but from slightly different perspectives. While I have read her other books with interest, "Acedia and Me" is a very sober book that brings many of the issues she has discussed elsewhere into stark focus. The subtitle is "A Marriage, Monks, and A Writer's Life". This is where the onion layers all peel back and we cry with her over the very open and honest journey she takes with her husband that ultimately ends in his death after years and years of illness and depression and discouragement. While she talks of illness and depression in her other books, here she delves deeply into them and studies and examines them in light of the struggles of her own marriage, her husband's illnesses and eventual death, her difficulties in writing, and the struggles of her own search for God's truth.

"Acedia" from the title, is defined by the author as "at its Greek root it means the absence of care. The person afflicted with acedia refuses to care or is incapable of doing so. When life becomes too challenging and engagement with others too demanding, acedia offers a kind of spiritual morphine: you know the pain is there, yet can't rouse yourself to give a damn." Acedia and depression at first sound synonymous, but again the author offers up her distinction, "I would suggest that while depression is an illness treatable by counseling and medication, acedia is a vice that is best countered by spiritual practice and the discipline of prayer."

Kathleen has the temperament that tends toward melancholy and depression. She married a man who also had this personality trait. David, her husband, grew up in a devout Roman Catholic family but became disenchanted with the emotional non-rational faith of his Roman Catholic mother, and left Roman Catholic church to delve into mathematics and rational sciences after his mother's death. A poet with scientific leanings, he also began to bear in his body the results of his depression and melancholy. Kathleen became more interested in her Christian faith as she rediscovered the words and poetry of the Bible. She began pursuing the spiritual practice of the Liturgy of the Hours as practiced by Benedictines. A Presbyterian Christian poet, married to a lapsed Roman Catholic poet, they began years of grindingly difficult cycles of illness / depression / recovery. David was off-put by Kathleen's returning Christian faith, yet he was genuinely thankful for her faith in Christ.

Woven all through this book is the spiritual remedy for Kathleen's spiritual struggle with acedia. It is reading the Bible regularly and aloud, primarily through the practice of the Liturgy of the Hours, and prayer. Her struggles are real and she writes very powerfully about them. Her tenacity to cling to the words of the Bible is also very powerful. The Desert Fathers and Mothers believed the words of the Bible were and are true, and thus they had the power to change you. Kathleen believes this also, and demonstrates that while her remedies do not remove the "thorn in the flesh", they are effective in allowing her to have a marriage she and her husband considered to be a blessing, work that she delighted in, and confidence that she was working towards an eternal goal worth attaining.

I recommend this book. It was encouraging for me to read, not because I read it and 'felt better at the end' because everything ended up so tidily and nice. It was encouraging because life is messy, and life is hard, and while Christ does redeem and save us, we still have to live each day of our lives in often difficult circumstances that do not "clean up well". For her to have fought for so many years with her depression, to have struggled and worked and wept and rejoiced with her husband through all the years of illness and disease, and to come out on the other side and say "I am thankful to God for his blessings", that is true testimony that the remedy of spiritual practice and the discipline of prayer does indeed work.
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May 17, 2010 Andrew rated it 5 of 5 stars

Kathleen Norris' 'Dakota' captured my attention for a couple of weeks five years ago. It opened my eyes to dynamics that still inform how I see and experience the world today.

When I saw the title and subtitle of this book, I knew I needed to read it. Norris, in her typical fashion (well-researched, highly personal, filled with grace, and humorous...not a bad combo!), presents a fascinating study on what ancient virtue-ethicists (monks, in this case) called Acedia. She struggles over how to trans...more

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Nov 19, 2008 Carol rated it 4 of 5 stars

Kathleen Norris has made an auspicious place for herself in spiritual literature, through her explorations with poetry, with place (Dakota), and her extensive time spent in Benedictene monasteries. Her most recent book is a study on acedia, defined as the absence of care. Acedia was one of the "eight bad thoughts" as defined by the desert fathers, and became known as "sloth" when the Catholic church defined seven deadly sins.
Norris acknowledges that this sort of torpor or boredom with repetition...more

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Jan 26, 2009 Kate rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reread pp 1-80

"David enjoyed a passage I had found in Louise Bogan's memoirs, in which she writes of seeing out the window of a psychiatric ward, a woman hanging clothes and of 'wishing that I, too, could . . . hang out clothes in a happy, normal way.' When she walked with other patients at 'the hour when children begin to scent supper,' she observed an air of despondency came over the group. The women 'knew the hour in their bones. It was no hour to be out, taking an aimless walk'" (81).

"I am s...more

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Feb 05, 2013 Ruth Everhart rated it 4 of 5 stars

I gave this a 4-star rating, but that's really a compromise between 3 stars and 5 stars -- some parts of it were really excellent and some parts of it felt repetitive. I suspect the book is a compilation of some lecture material and articles. These were the parts that I thought could have been edited together, rather than cobbled together. The question at the bottom of the book is: How is Acedia like/unlike depression. There were sections that I felt like I "got it" and other sections seem to un...more

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Jan 17, 2013 Jessica Stock rated it 4 of 5 stars

In this theological memoir Kathleen Norris explores her relationship with acedia, a term long forgotten and now difficult to define. It is often described as chronic apathy, boredom, sloth, bleakness of soul, an inability to care." She applies this concept to contemporary society as "the ancient demon of acedia in modern dress".

Norris goes to great length to define the word acedia, a complex and little-known word that feels frighteningly familiar, and then to describe it's presence in herself, h...more

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Jun 02, 2012 Nicolas Shump rated it 5 of 5 stars

There are times when you read a book and you feel that you have been waiting for this book your whole life. It is as if this book had been written with you in mind. I have always had an attachment to the books I read, sometimes too much of an attachment, but this book answered some lingering questions I had about my life choices and it helped to clarify how to deal with some issues I had been struggling with throughout my adult life. I know I sound hyperbolic, but Acedia & me: a Marriage, Mo...more There are times when you read a book and you feel that you have been waiting for this book your whole life. It is as if this book had been written with you in mind. I have always had an attachment to the books I read, sometimes too much of an attachment, but this book answered some lingering questions I had about my life choices and it helped to clarify how to deal with some issues I had been struggling with throughout my adult life. I know I sound hyperbolic, but Acedia & me: a Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life by Kathleen Norris is a book that has made an important difference in my life.
Norris' book is partially a memoir, partially a meditation on our culture, partially a critique of how we deal with depression and other medical issues related to mental health, and it is finally a book on spirituality, a topic that Norris feels our "modern" culture has neglected in many ways.
The organizing principle for this book is Norris' exploration of the term acedia and its impact on her life and on our culture. As she points out from the beginning of the book, acedia is a term that is not well-known and when it is discussed it is often mistranslated or grouped with related concepts.
One of the best features of this book is what she calls "A Commonplace Book" that has various monks, writers, and mental health professionals discussing the term acedia.
Norris when discussing the impact of acedia claims: "Life then looms like a prison sentence, day after day of nothingness." When I read this I was reminded of Walker Percy's first novel, The Moviegoer. In this novel, Percy, who was trained as a psychiatrist, speaks of the affliction known as "everydayness." I think that Percy, as a Catholic convert who was familiar with Catholic tradition, perhaps had acedia in mind, though I don't recall him using that term in the novel. Whatever term you want to use, Norris feels that this affliction, can suck the life out of one's existence. During my senior year of high school, I went into a major funk that most of my teachers, family, and friends might have called depression. I feel now that I might have been suffering from acedia.
Norris traces this idea back to a fourth century monk known as Evagrius Ponticus. Evagrius and others also refer to acedia as "The Noonday Demon." Norris explains: "The desert monks termed acedia 'the noonday demon' because the temptation usually struck during the heat of the day, when the monk was hungry and fatigued, and susceptible to the suggestion that his commitment to a life of prayer was not worth the effort."
Norris claims that we can become basically addicted to acedia, which "offers a kind of spiritual morphine: you know the pain is there, yet can't rouse yourself to give a damn." Norris is also quick to point out that acedia is not depression. She makes the argument that depression is often treatable by counseling and medication, but that acedia is "best countered by spiritual practice and the discipline of prayer."
As a writer and spouse, Norris has "come to believe that acedia can strike anyone whose work requires self-motivation and solitude, anyone who remains married "for better or worse,' anyone who is determined to stay true to a commitment that is sorely tested in everyday life." I couldn't agree more. Acedia is the temptation that it is easier or even better to walk away from our commitments, especially those most dear to us.
For monks and for Norris, one must re-engage in life, even though it may seem tedious. "When I stop running from my life, I can return to living it, willing to be present again, in the present moment. But this means embracing those routine and repetitive activities that I tend to scorn."
However, Norris and other commentators don't want to entirely dismiss acedia. The poet Joseph Brodsky in referring to "boredom" claims that: "The reason boredom deserves such scrutiny is that it represents pure, undiluted time in al of its repetitive, redundant, monotonous splendor." In other words, acedia or boredom is a gift, a spiritual gift. This is what St. John of the Cross was getting at in his classic work, The Dark Night of the Soul. You must live through this dark night in order to return to the light of morning.
According to Evagrius, monks and anyone suffering from acedia must cultivate cardiognosis, literally knowledge of the heart. This is not something one comes by easily, which is why Evagrius, Norris, and others believe that the fight against acedia is a constant, if not a lifelong struggle.
Throughout this evocative and often heart-wrenching narrative, Norris deals with not only acedia, but also a struggle with loss. Near the end of the narrative, she shares a prayer that helped her deal with her own demons.
"This is another day, O Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words, and give me the Spirit of Jesus. Amen."
Amen to for this graceful work that Kathleen Norris has shared with those of us who struggle with our own Noonday Demons.

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Mar 05, 2012 Cheryl rated it 3 of 5 stars

The quality of content and scope of this book would merit four stars, but I settled on three stars because it is so incredibly difficult to read. I've had it on the bedside table forever and couldn't get through more than a few chapters. I finally listened to the author read it on CD, which really made it clear how dense the material was, intensely intellectual and detailing complex personal issues. The difficulty arises from her weaving of a very substantial academic meditation on a relatively...more

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Jan 29, 2012 D.M. Dutcher rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: christian, biography

An erudite, if rambling book that tries to combine the writer's life with meditations on the concept of Acedia. Acedia unfortunately seems to be hard for her to define: it's a habit of mind that combines a sort of fatalistic resentment of things with laziness, and that affects people who are drawn to the monastic life. "I don't want to do anything, and I don't care!"

Mixed in with this are biographical snapshots of her life. Her husbands slow, hidden sink into depression, her life as a young woma...more

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Sep 29, 2011 Todd rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Acedia is the term coined by the desert ascetics for the temptation to a particular kind of restlessness and sorrow. It is not an illness. It is not depression. It's neither sloth nor laziness. Personified as the noonday-demon, acedia was once considered one of the deadly sins. The term has given way to sloth, but it might be better described as the father of sloth. It is the temptation to diversion that keeps one off-task and unproductive when facing a deadline or goal. It is a form of apathy t...more Acedia is the term coined by the desert ascetics for the temptation to a particular kind of restlessness and sorrow. It is not an illness. It is not depression. It's neither sloth nor laziness. Personified as the noonday-demon, acedia was once considered one of the deadly sins. The term has given way to sloth, but it might be better described as the father of sloth. It is the temptation to diversion that keeps one off-task and unproductive when facing a deadline or goal. It is a form of apathy that arises from sensory overload.

In Acedia and Me, Kathleen Norris defines acedia by tracing the use of the term in the literature of the early church through the time of Thomas Aquinas. The concept is illustrated by Norris' candid accounts of its affects within her marriage and life as a writer. 'Acedia is the particular enemy of anyone whose work requires self-motivation and solitude." Her memoir teaches us that acedia presses "anyone who remains married 'for better, for worse,' anyone who is determined to stay true to a commitment that is sorely tested in everyday life."

A good defense involves knowing our enemies. Having the name of a common but often overlooked temptation is helpful. Better still, are Norris' accounts of the effectiveness of simplicity and ritual in the thwarting of that temptation. It is through the disciplined doing of that which we might deem "dispiriting duties" or crude necessities that we learn contentment. That "faith and love operate best through humble means of boring everyday occupations is a thoroughly biblical perspective, for its stories repeatedly remind us God's attention is fixed on what we regard as unimportant and unworthy." Best of all is Norris' commendation of both the act and content of liturgical and lectionary based devotion and prayer. Her use of the Psalms in battling acedia is particularly helpful.

I listened to this quickly as required reading for a recent conference. The Audible download was good. Mrs. Norris served well enough as the narrator of her own work, though I would have preferred a professional reader.(less)

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Aug 30, 2010 Tina rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I picked up this book based on Giedra's Goodreads recommendation. I'll do an grossly inadequate job at defining acedia, but I gathered it to be thoughts that lead to slothfulness. Early on, I determined I didn't suffer from acedia necessarily and thought about ditching the book. Thankfully, I flipped over a few chapters and caught some narrative that pulled me in, so that I kept reading. I particularly liked Norris' references to the desert monks. It was amazing to read a quote that so vividly d...more

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Nov 02, 2009 Willie Krischke rated it 2 of 5 stars

Norris says in the introduction to this book that she's been working on it for a long, long time, gathering materials, reading, and writing. I suspect that what she was waiting for - consciously or intuitively - was an organizing structure. She never found it.

"Acedia & Me" is full of lots of wisdom and reflection on the spiritual problem of depression/apathy/boredom/distraction, as well as a smattering of wonderful quotes and stories from church literature that has been largely forgotten by...more

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May 14, 2011 Jen rated it 5 of 5 stars

FABULOUS. I'd forgotten how much I'd enjoyed Kathleen Norris before I found this book in a thrift store. Then, it turned out the local library had the audiobook version, with a cd that included a pdf of many of the quotes. This book helped me think through some topics. Here are some of my favorite quotes.

...making your bed is a form of showing hospitatlity to yourself...

physical work is the best way to fight acedia

You struggle with apathy because you have a great capacity for zeal

only worry abou...more

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Sep 08, 2012 Lisa Beaulieu rated it 2 of 5 stars

If Ms Norris had hired a better editor, I may have been able to finish this book a bit quicker - as it stands, it has taken me 3 years. The subtitle gives you a clue to the problem - no, these three things do not end up fitting together at all. Much space is given to her marriage, which should perhaps have been left to it's own book. The parts where she does talk about acedia and the desert fathers were good, but they never quite hung together - repetition, with no final grasp of what acedia rea...more

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Aug 19, 2009 Lianne rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have read previous works by Kathleen Norris including "Cloister Walk" and
"Dakota" both about her experiences as a frequent visitor to a monastic
community in North Dakota. I have enjoyed her thoughtful contemplative insights.
This book explores the theme of spiritual acedia, which is a term that comes from
early Christian monastic writing and means something like spiritual sloth.The
book also relates her husband's depression and illnesses. She looks at the overlap
between the spiritual and the ps...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Matt rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: library

I forget what it was that led me to seek out this book—maybe a mention in Quiet?—but it's certainly unusual for me to read a book with a Christian spiritual message at its core. That's not why I was reading it, of course. What intrigued me was the idea of an examination of acedia as a condition or state distinct from (and more insidious than) the depression and "mere" sloth with which it's now conflated. It's an old idea, dating to the desert hermits and mystics of early Christianity, one of the...more I forget what it was that led me to seek out this book—maybe a mention in Quiet?—but it's certainly unusual for me to read a book with a Christian spiritual message at its core. That's not why I was reading it, of course. What intrigued me was the idea of an examination of acedia as a condition or state distinct from (and more insidious than) the depression and "mere" sloth with which it's now conflated. It's an old idea, dating to the desert hermits and mystics of early Christianity, one of the original Eight Bad Thoughts elided out when they became the Seven Deadly Sins.

In the commonplace-book anthology which ends this volume, one Melvin Maddocks describes acedia as "the weariness of effort that extends to the heart and becomes a weariness of caring." Beckett (no surprise) provides another view: "You think you are simply resting, the better to act when the time comes, or for no reason, and you soon find yourself powerless ever to do anything again." And Pessoa (of course!): "Tedium is not the disease of being bored because there's nothing to do, but the more serious disease of feeling that there's nothing worth doing." I read the book because I was wondering, well, maybe that's what I've got a case of?

"The desire to avoid hardship becomes the dread of taking any action at all." (151) "At the first sign of difficulty or obstruction you try to think of ways to move past it, but at every turn you defeat yourself, shooting each fresh idea down as unlikely to work. How foolish of you to have ever believed in that person, that project, that God." (231) Clearly there's something of pride, of self-importance, in this idea—and in my idea of reading such a book, thinking it might apply to me. I don't have just your common-or-garden depression, I've got a spiritual affliction with an ancient pedigree. I was torn between wanting the satisfaction of seeing the symptoms in myself, and wanting to be shot clear of such a debilitating diagnosis. Even if "As a remedy for the affliction, Thomas Aquinas recommended a hot bath, a glass of wine, and a good night's sleep." (35)

So acedia is not just a negative reaction to the world, in the misleading stereotype of depression: it's a lack of reaction, even a wallowing in this unmarked state. The cure is not excitement, some new passion or attraction, but a slow and steady and cautious re-engagement with the normal, the everyday, the routine. And as directly as possible, not mediated: "Acedia is at work in us when we prefer buying things to witnessing the beauty of nature, 'reading' catalogues instead of books, or lingering in a museum store instead of touring the museum itself." (194) And that's where it gets spiritual, because Norris finds that kind of direct engagement with the ordinary in regular prayer and monastic ritual.

Norris' story is woven through this book: her move to an isolated South Dakota town, her rediscovery of religious ritual, and most of all her patient caretaking during her husband's many health crises, long decline, and death. All of that brings present her idea and experience of acedia, which might otherwise remain an ancient abstraction, but both the long-enduring marriage and the respite she finds in prayer remain foreign to me. I guess that's essential—part of her point is that acedia is a renunciation of personal engagement with the world—but, for me, this vehicle didn't work.

It's still a really interesting (and personally relevant) idea, that there are many varieties of depression and disengagement from the world and what "cures" one may actually feed another. I don't "have" acedia, I don't think—otherwise why would I put in the effort to read this book, to write this review?—but certainly I've long distrusted blanket generalizations about mood and temperament, and this is a new and intriguing perspective. I can even understand that it's hard to write about acedia without bringing in some kind of "spiritual" thought. I suspect, though, that some variation on (originally Buddhist, yes) mindfulness practice could fulfill for others the role that Christian ritual does for Norris, and a book with that frame would be one I could more fully engage with. Even though it was the early Christians who gave it the name, the idea—and the problem—of acedia is not, in the end, religious.(less)

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Nov 21, 2008 Capitu rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008, spiritual

I was disappointed with this book. It was just too uneven of a book, with moments when it really picked up my interest and passages that spoke to my heart, only to fade in a few pages to the repetitious descriptions of acedia. At times I just wanted to scream at her: go back and rewrite it all as essays.

I really wanted to hear more about her experience as a teenager, about marriage, death and spiritual growth. But she insisted on linking it all under the theme of acedia, and too often it felt m...more

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Oct 15, 2010 Robert rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a very well-written autobiography - interesting, heart-felt. Unfortunately it is not just a personal narrative. The autobiographical sections are accompanied by - are buried between - seemingly endless pages of subjective introspection, quite narcissistic, tedious, and by even more pages of diffuse speculations on the concept of acedia. Reviving this word might have some value - might be useful in discriminating between ordinary depression and this particular variety - the feeling of com...more This is a very well-written autobiography - interesting, heart-felt. Unfortunately it is not just a personal narrative. The autobiographical sections are accompanied by - are buried between - seemingly endless pages of subjective introspection, quite narcissistic, tedious, and by even more pages of diffuse speculations on the concept of acedia. Reviving this word might have some value - might be useful in discriminating between ordinary depression and this particular variety - the feeling of complete "weariness with life", of spiritual, mental, social, and moral apathy. And there is some value in regarding this emotional state as a sinful temptation, as something that can be, and ought to be, resisted. But rather than analyzing acedia in a disciplined manner, defining the concept in a clear and distinct form, Norris choices to suggest its meaning, to intimate it, to surround it with a host of connotations, to say everything that can possibly be said about it. Course Norris is a poet - word play and self-expression are her stock in trade, they are what she does for a living. Unfortunately I have little poetic sensibility and find little pleasure in either deeply introspective writing or in detailed expositions of vague concepts, in exploring their various connotations. So I feel guilty about being critical of this book. I am certain that the fault is mostly mine - that I just have no "feel" for this sort of writing. But an even greater problem for me is the author's glorification of the cenobite life - especially her almost gnostic belief in the secret wisdom of the "Desert Fathers" - her belief that their disciplinarian practices and psychological insights can be utilized to increase one's own spirituality, to bring one closer to God. Even if these behavior modification techniques can change the way one thinks and acts, can make us more pious, more God-conscious, they also can lead to spiritual elitism, to isolation, to self-disappointment and frustration - can lead to "acedia". Moreover, this turning inward of Christianity, this over emphasis on the inner life, this struggle for theosis has, for me, little to do with "following Jesus". I have enough problems trying to lead a decent life - striving to be holy would be just silly.

[A mystery: the "commonplace" section of this book contains dozens and dozens of quotes regarding acedia spanning two millennia - many of which are only tangentially allusive - and yet nowhere in her book does Norris reference the most relevant quote from scripture, the one most descriptive of acedia, i.e. the passage from Ecclesiastes: "'Meaningless! Meaningless' says the Teacher. 'Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless . . . I have seen all things that are done under the sun. All of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind'". Her motive in omitting this most ideal expression of acedia is inexplicable.]
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Feb 02, 2009 Susan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Oh this latest from K Norris is her best yet, at least to my brain. A little-known-to-the-modern-world wave of thought/behavior called Acedia is its focus. Here Norris has spared no effort, during the book's incubation over the last 20 years, at yanking Acedia out from its sly hiding places in her own life and subjecting it to a lasery investigation. This investigation includes the testimonies of men and women who fled the cities in the early Christian era for the purpose of creating labs out o...more

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Feb 28, 2011 Tim rated it 3 of 5 stars

The book and its subtitle does a good job of describing its purpose and structure. It is supposed to be centrally about acedia, which Norris defines early on, but muddies throughout the text, adding definitions and details to expand her writing. But the initial definition is "the absence of care." "Acedia is the monk's temptation because, in the demanding life of prayer, it offers the ease of indifference." I especially like and am challenged by Aquinas' comment that acedia is not following the...more The book and its subtitle does a good job of describing its purpose and structure. It is supposed to be centrally about acedia, which Norris defines early on, but muddies throughout the text, adding definitions and details to expand her writing. But the initial definition is "the absence of care." "Acedia is the monk's temptation because, in the demanding life of prayer, it offers the ease of indifference." I especially like and am challenged by Aquinas' comment that acedia is not following the demands of love. It is tied to sloth and Norris examines the slothful in Dante and elsewhere.

Mixed in with her examination of this word and its meaning is memoir, especially of her relationship with her husband and his health struggles and eventual death. As I look back, I am not exactly certain where it ties into acedia and where it does not. I know Norris finds a deep strain of acedia in her life, and that resonates with me. But her memoir of her husband's life and death is about care and only obliquely about spirituality. It, harsh to say, also did not interest me all that much, which might be a fault in me, but I think is more a fault in the writing which felt more withdrawn.

Norris is distant from spiritual practice in this work. She seems constantly dry, absent from worship and prayer, and fills up the pages with many quotes from other sources, including classical mystical and theological texts and modern day monastics. I get that it is about acedia, but it seems to examine the term in a slothful and disengaged way. I would also value the book and the many quotes more if there were any sort of footnotes or bibliography. There are none and for this historian it really is a travesty and greatly reduces the usefulness of the book. She is also mildly dismissive of orthodox Christian thought at times, seemingly writing for some obscure hipster spirituality set (or angry Catholics), and that tired me as it kept happening.

Norris can write beautiful and thoughtful prose and I am glad to have read the book and gained further insight into acedia. But overall this book does not feel unified, is withdrawn and less engaged in actual spiritual practice. Instead Norris relies on the words and experiences of others, which by the end comes to feel more like spiritual tourism than a spiritual life. (less)

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Jan 21, 2009 Lisa rated it 2 of 5 stars

As in "The Cloister Walk," (which I did enjoy), Norris mixes careful research and quotation from sources with personal experience, this time as she tries to define the term "acedia." Although she tries to distinguish it from depression and sloth, she notes an overlap, and the boundaries between the terms seem muddy at times.

I was interested to see how she developed a discussion of this interesting spiritual condition that can lead to laziness, etc., but the organization of parts of the book was...more

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Jan 23, 2009 Deborah Black rated it 4 of 5 stars

Given my driving habits this last year commuting to school, I felt compelled to get the recorded version. How is it that, despite my annoyance at the timber of author Norris' delivery - a sloooow unengaging slog - I couldn't stop listening and it kept me company for several long return trips, an unique reading experience in itself.

Some of my subbornness was due to my good history with her writing from her Dakoka days, another her honest scholarship, her own relentlessness and, as the book came...more

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Feb 07, 2009 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: christianity, memoirs, nonfiction

I have only read one other book by Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk. I loved that one and I appreciated this one because it filled in some of the gaps in her personal life that I had wondered about (what was her husband up to while she was spending so much time in that monastery? - and what did he think?). I liked her exploration of acedia and I have struggled with it at times, but not recently at all. In that sense it was hard to relate. It seems like a writer's life (or a monk's) would be hi...more

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Sep 14, 2011 Tracie rated it 3 of 5 stars

The concept of acedia really drew me into this book, as I readily identified with it--spiritual slothfulness, or as I put it, "knowing what would make you feel better, yet not doing it". Or as St. Thomas Aquinas expressed it, "not following the demands of love". The author, Norris, says acedia is not the same as depression, although they are first cousins. Anyways, I felt like the book was not well organized and somewhat repetitive. Then it seemed like acedia became the underlying cause for ever...more

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Feb 27, 2009 Emilia P rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: churrrch, real-books

Well, Ms. Norris.

The not so great: as she admits early on in the book, this is a subject that she wanted to write about for a very long time, and it sort of shows. It's sort of a pulling together of disparate elements from her life interspersed and not that well blended with meditation on the roots and definitions of acedia. And you kind of have to have read some of her other work to get the spiritual mindset she's coming from, which is a little problematic. So -- she doesn't pull it together th...more

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Mar 13, 2011 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's a strange topic, or combination of topics for a book that I wholeheartedly recommend. Acedia--in modern terms--depression was concered one of the "bad thoughts" of medieval monastic life. Somehow though we've lost the term and the spiritual condition of acedia and replaced it with ennui or depression. And as the vocabulary has changed, so has the treatment--pills instead of prayer, psychology instead of psalms. Though I may disagree at times with Norris' Catholic theology and rituals, her d...more

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Aug 26, 2012 Lacey Louwagie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: essays, memoir, non-fiction, writing

I have whole shelves in my house devoted to books about marriage; to books about Catholicism; and to books about writing. And here we have a book that puts all three of those things in one place. Whoa!

I found here the same quiet contemplation and reflection on everyday lives that I found appealing in Kathleen Norris's earlier work, Dakota. And now that I live in South Dakota myself, I liked that I could vividly picture the way her life here must have been (I'm not sure she still lives here; at t...more I have whole shelves in my house devoted to books about marriage; to books about Catholicism; and to books about writing. And here we have a book that puts all three of those things in one place. Whoa!

I found here the same quiet contemplation and reflection on everyday lives that I found appealing in Kathleen Norris's earlier work, Dakota. And now that I live in South Dakota myself, I liked that I could vividly picture the way her life here must have been (I'm not sure she still lives here; at the end of this book, she was living in Hawaii, one of her childhood homes.)

This book takes the idea of acedia, a "deadly sin" that has since fallen out of fashion and been overshadowed by "sloth" or, on a more secular level, "depression." Since it takes a whole book to really delve into this, I won't try to totally unpack the word (which I'd never heard before) here, although I read another review that succinctly says that acedia is to the soul what depression is to the mind. A state of lethargy and apathy seems the best way to characterize it using words and concepts that haven't fallen out of fashion.

Throughout her life, Kathleen Norris (like many writers, I suspect), has struggled with this affliction. I related to the many periods in her life when she felt totally resistant to writing, to the ways she combatted it by throwing herself into something physical, like taking a walk or kneading bread; and yet she never makes excuses, either, examining her acedia -- and by extension, other people's struggles with it as well -- with both compassion and an insistence upon accountability.

Of the three elements within this book, the "marriage" or more "memoir-esque" aspect is where the writing is strongest, as she recounts her struggles with her husband's depression, attempted suicide, and eventual death from illness. Although it probably made up the smallest portion of the book, reflections on writing were next up. I found the reflections on acedia and spirituality/monastic practice to be the most tedious, mainly because they often stayed in the realm of the abstract and the intellectual, with her many references to long-dead and ancient mystics and contemplatives, even though she clearly tried to connect them to the concrete stuff of living. Still, there were times when the more abstract reflections bordered on being tangential.

But it was still a worthwhile "read," one that I'd recommend actually reading rather than listening to as I did, because it is not read particularly well, and I may have been more apt to dig into some of the meatier portions were I seeing the words and the punctuation in front of my own eyes. (less)

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About Kathleen Norris

Kathleen Norris was born on July 27, 1947 in Washington, D.C. She grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, as well as on her maternal grandparents’ farm in Lemmon, South Dakota.

Her sheltered upbringing left her unprepared for the world she encountered when she began attending Bennington College in Vermont. At first shocked by the unconventionality surrounding her, Norris took refuge in poetry.

After she grad...more

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The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and Woman's "Work"

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“For grace to be grace, it must give us things we didn't know we needed and take us places where we didn't know we didn't want to go. As we stumble through the crazily altered landscape of our lives, we find that God is enjoying our attention as never before. ” — 11 people liked it

“But hope has an astonishing resilience and strength. Its very persistence in our hearts indicates that it is not a tonic for wishful thinkers but the ground on which realists stand.” — 6 people liked it

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