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A Book of Silence
In her late forties, after a noisy upbringing as one of six children and adulthood as a vocal feminist and mother, Sara Maitland found herself living alone in the country, and, to her surprise, falling in love with silence. In this fascinating, intelligent, beautifully written book, Maitland describes how she set out to explore this new love, spending periods of silence in...more
Hardcover, 320 pages
Published
September 29th 2009
by Counterpoint
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Sara Maitland’s work has often been infused with a sense of faith, and a fascination with myth and religion. It seems only fitting that with these interests would come a need to explore ways of living – and Maitland has become interested in the eremitical. Silence and a lack of human contact appealed to her, and so, over a decade, she began to explore this state of being – in the desert in Sinai, on the Isle of Skye over a harsh winter, and finally through the building of her home in rural Gallo...more
This is an unusual book: it's style reminds me of the way books used to be, before we in America began to value the personal voice. Sarah Maitland writes a very personal book, but in a way that an academic would write it. The shadow of patriarchy looms all over this enchanting, and well-intentioned book. Most of my women friends here hated it:).
I liked it very much.
Sarah Maitland sets out to research "silence." She is doing so for personal reasons, but it seems...more
I liked it very much.
Sarah Maitland sets out to research "silence." She is doing so for personal reasons, but it seems...more
This book just frustrated me. I really enjoy the subject, so I was looking forward to reading it, and she definitely made some interesting points along the way. However, her book of silence should have been an article of silence, as she belabored almost every point (she even admits doing so in the conclusion, where she also admits that she doesn't want to conclude the book, something I felt throughout). Also, given that the book is so centered on her pursuit of silence, there needs to be some...more
If you need convincing that a retreat or long period of silence would be good for you, try this book. She was convincing the already converted in my case, but in this relentlessly noisy civilization, she cogently argues the case for silence as a critical approach for self discovery. Her insights into the different types of silence, into the history of attempts to find silence are woven in with her personal odyssey: 40 days in the wilderness on the isle of Skye in Scotland, time in the Sinai dese...more
From Nytimes book review Sept 13 2009
Surprisingly, Maitland’s journey provokes a crisis in her work. A successful novelist, she had long depended on her ability to imagine alternate worlds. But the deeper she went into silence, the more her fiction eluded her. “This gave me the idea,” she explains, “that there might be something profoundly different between the silence of the hermits and the silence of creative artists.” The first kind of silence requires an emptying out of the self ...more
Surprisingly, Maitland’s journey provokes a crisis in her work. A successful novelist, she had long depended on her ability to imagine alternate worlds. But the deeper she went into silence, the more her fiction eluded her. “This gave me the idea,” she explains, “that there might be something profoundly different between the silence of the hermits and the silence of creative artists.” The first kind of silence requires an emptying out of the self ...more
In the course of researching and writing the book Maitland spent silent time in silent places – on Skye in the Hebrides; in the Sinai Desert; in forests and mountains; in a flotation tank; in monasteries and libraries. She was trying to match her personal experiences to those of other people – from fairy stories to single-handed sailors, from hermits and romantic poets to prisoners and castaways, from reading and writing to mountaineering and polar exploration, from mythology to psychoanalysis.
...more
A Book of Silence
Sara Maitland (2008)
At first, I found myself totally immersed in this book – the need for silence, the difficulty in finding it, searching for it, gardening, reading, walking… the darker sides etc. A Book of Silence is full of very practical advice and examples of what to expect and how to prepare for extended periods of isolation/silence.
Then, about a third of the way through, I began to feel that it was all becoming a little too obsessive, a little to...more
Sara Maitland (2008)
At first, I found myself totally immersed in this book – the need for silence, the difficulty in finding it, searching for it, gardening, reading, walking… the darker sides etc. A Book of Silence is full of very practical advice and examples of what to expect and how to prepare for extended periods of isolation/silence.
Then, about a third of the way through, I began to feel that it was all becoming a little too obsessive, a little to...more
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This book was all but overwhelming for me. There were some slow parts (which probably just meant I didn't understand where she was going) but on page after page I had moment after moment of startling insights. This is a spiritual book. It's about touching and allowing yourself to be touched by God. Maitland's is a Christian orientation but she incorporates many other spiritual outlooks. One of her biggest dilemmas was how to go into her personal silence, meet God, dwell with him to the best of h...more
I read this two years ago back in Amsterdam, but have just picked it up again. I love Maitland's capacity / willingness to 'wander' across sacred and secular boundaries, evaluating silence as at one and the same time a human and a spiritual reality. Her personal investment in the topic is extreme - short of building a hut on the moon she could hardly have embodied her search for silence more fully - but the results are illuminating for all of us. A very valuable read for anyone exploring contemp...more
This was inspiring. The author doesn't just theorize about silence, she experiments with it in a variety of settings--mountain, desert, seaside--beginning with 40 days on an island off the coast of Scotland. She describes her psychological responses to silence and reviews the literature. Is silence the absence of language or the absence of sound? Interestingly, the OED lists the absence of language as the first meaning. Thus, if you are reading, you are not fully silent. In full silence dif...more
Sara Maitland is perhaps the modern-day female equivalent of Henry David Thoreau. Her writing style is brilliant and enchanting. Newsweek describes the book as "a strikingly refreshing book to read, in the midst of the clamor and din, ever-mounting distrions, yelling TV pundits, solipsistic tweet-ing, and flash-card sentiment of our Internet age...Maitland rails against the idea of silence as void, absence, and lack--something we must rush to fill--insisting it is positive and nurturing, ...more
The author contemplates the concept of silence, to the nth degree, in this book. What silence is, where and how to get it, what happens when you experience a lot of it for a long time, and how silence has been perceived and experienced through the ages by different people in different places. No stone is left unturned. She clearly values it for herself and poses some interesting questions about how much of it we have now and possibly how much more of it we could use. I liked this book but by...more
This book is largely concerned with Sara Maitland’s pursuit of a hermit existence and a philosophical/religious definition of silence as an entity in itself rather than just an absence of sound. As such you get an interesting cultural history of the role of silence in art and religion as well as an autobiographical account.
Despite not sharing her Christian beliefs which come to dominate the book I was still very much inclined to agree with her central point about the value of silenc...more
Despite not sharing her Christian beliefs which come to dominate the book I was still very much inclined to agree with her central point about the value of silenc...more
This is a pretty unique book in that it is a book on silence, written by a novelist who seeks to build the practice of silence more into her life. She is a Christian and states of one objective to exploring the practice of silence is to deepen her prayer life. She does say that it does, but it not very forthright and vulnerable about her prayer life. You don't really get that in this book, though she does include some theological reflection in these pages.
Instead her book is like an ...more
Instead her book is like an ...more
Maitland has discovered that she has fallen in love with silence. She reorders her life so that silence will play as a big a part in it as possible. She moves to a remote part of Britain and rigorously researches and thinks about silence revealing quite a bit about its nature. I wish she would admit that much of her passion about silence is that she is fed up with people. I skipped some pages on fairy stories/creation myths. This is a very different kind of book by a puzzling and eccentric woman...more
Disappointing (although our TSSF discussion resulting from a group read was not) - I found Ms Maitland very irritating, and her inability to distinguish between solitude and silence was rather naive at times. However, probably a very useful book for those who want to explore silence as something completely anathema to them normally, or who want to make some kind of grand gesture, but there are those of us out there for whom the experiences she describes are our normal everyday existence
An academic look at silence. How it evolved from culturally positive to culturally negative. How it feels in different locations. And so many other things I can't remember them all. A great book. Not what I expected as I was thinking it was more about the authors personal experiences of silence. There was some of that, but the focus is more on silence itself.
It's probably my fault for thinking this book could be interesting, but it's really just a rambling journal of how one woman felt about giving herself some quiet time by living peacefully in the Scottish countryside. It doesn't add anything to what we already knew from reading "Walden Pond" in high school. zzzzzzzzzz
I'm sorry to say, this was disappointing for me. Love the idea for the book, but overall it was not compelling. Some of her points/riffs, and many of the anecdotes were interesting, but as a whole it I did not connect with it. I was surprised, as I love solitude, silence, retreat - but this just did not grab me.....
Sara Maitland goes in search of adding more silence to her life. The noisy world in which we live is overwhelming and she states that many people are fearful of the silence we seldom hear. She experiments with silence in her own life, researches the experiences of silence in others' lives, then finds a way to increase the quiet in her life while remaining financially responsible. This book inspires the reader, in a gentle way, to reduce the amount noise in our lives and revel in the silence t...more
A Scottish writer researches experiences of silence by religious hermits and solo adventurers. She conducts some of her own experiences on the Scottish coast, in a Buddhist monastery and in the desert. Her own experiments are frequently interrupted by her own baggage.
Beautifully written book. The author explores silence on a personal and intellectual level. She travels to differents types of settings to explore silence in the desert, forest, and moors. I found the different aspects of silence fascinating.
Read about this on here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2...
Via: http://belgianwaffling.blogspot.com/2010...
Via: http://belgianwaffling.blogspot.com/2010...
An extended personal exploration of silence, in religious and secular writing, in communities and alone, in nature and in "flotation chambers". An insightful, wonderful book, rich in many ways.
There's a lot of good stuff in here. I especially appreciated the range of sources she uses to trace the contours of silence. The chapters on the physical effects of silence and the desert fathers are both strong. The one on God and silence, including a catalogue of other creation narratives is worthwhile. She give the reader much to think about, and contemplate. Although it will undoubtedly not appeal to everyone. Silence is much richer because of this.
A Book of Silence was just that--silent to me. I could not get into at all. Although I appreciate silence more and more, the author and I are too dissimilar for me to connect to he writing. Oh well, I still appreciate silence--which is a precious and rare commodity in my life.
A beautiful meditation on the need and yearning for silence in an increasingly noisy and busy world. Sometimes, I felt the author circled her thoughts too much, but we all have our pace and need to fully recognize the desire for silence and reflection.
absolutely brilliant!
this book is inspirational, informative and really enjoyable to read. i found it really useful to help me think about my own silence and solitude seeking and show me ways in which to go back to it more fully.
thank you sara maitland.
this book is inspirational, informative and really enjoyable to read. i found it really useful to help me think about my own silence and solitude seeking and show me ways in which to go back to it more fully.
thank you sara maitland.
I enjoyed this book, very well written. Perhaps a little over-long, she could have reduced it by...oh, 100 pages at least. Still, well worth reading especially for fans of silence...
at times captivating...at times incredibly self-absorbed....
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Sara Maitland (born 1950) is a British writer and academic. An accomplished novelist, she is also known for her short stories. Her work has a magic realist tendency. Maitland is regarded as one of those at the vanguard of the 1970s feminist movement, and is often described as a feminist writer. She is a Roman Catholic, and religion is another theme in much of her work.
More about Sara Maitland...
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