The Frontiers of Paradise: A Study of Monks and Monasteries

by Peter Levi

Traces the history of monasteries, describes monastic leaders, and compares the monastic traditions of the East and West

Genres: History, Christianity

228 pages, Hardcover

First published March 7, 1988

About the author

Peter Chad Tigar Levi, FSA, FRSL, Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford (1984–1989) was a poet, archaeologist, sometime Jesuit priest, travel writer, biographer, academic and prolific reviewer and critic.

Reviews

[Allan Savage]

Even though the publisher has classified Levi’s book as “religion/history,” Levi does not present his study in a scholastic or formal academic manner. Rather, he is a poet interpreting history. This must be understood by the reader to truly appreciate the value and attraction of Levi’s study. “What I have chosen to do is to discuss the most important historical turning-points in some detail, but to show as much as possible by examples, which have been picked for the light they shed on this or that,” he writes. He concentrates on the monks and monasteries of the West more than the East because Western records are fuller and more reliable than Eastern ones. Regardless of the culture, theology, or the historical context, all desires to found monasteries, the author maintains, is personal in that it is the desire for God and the need for silence and for study and meditation that is at the root of this desire. In voluntary isolation from the world a constant process of the self-reform for the monk and of the monastery is undertaken. Neither is permitted stasis, but both must move either forwards or backwards, Levi contends. He concludes that in this study of monks no one conclusion, yet many conclusions are possible on the reader’s part.

[Mk100 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love everything Levi writes. He's led a very interesting life - a priest, a scholar, a brilliant traveler to inhospitable places, and a poet who held the same poetry chair Robert Graves did at Oxford. He is erudite with a light tough, and finds the inherent interest in everyone's life, even an ascetic monk.

I believe there are no boring people - only bad listeners and people who don't know how to ask the right questions. Levi is a great listener who knows how to ask the right questions. He's also plainly a great reader.

I highly recommend this book, as well as his "In The Light Garden Of The Angel King," where he and Bruce Chatwin try to determine just how far Alexander the Great really made it into Afghanistan, and to track down evidence of the ancient rumors that Alexander the Great left behind a group of blond-haired and blue-eyed Greeks, whose descendants may still be there. A great read.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

dear god! have i ever read such a frustrating book? i don't think so!! example: "the most popular author was Apuleius Barbarus, who wrote in the fifth century. i can still remember almost by heart his paragraph on strawberries, which i cannot have read for nearly thirty years." does he go on to let us in on this paragraph? NO! the book is filled with stuff like this. it is like reading a book with footnotes in a foreign language, the height of arrogance. and his bibliography is as spare. so he lets us know he is a treasure-house of knowledge, but it's all his. irritating to the max! but, alas, filled with titillating fragments that one wants to hunt down. sigh.

[Edoardo Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was the literary equivalent of finding yourself, at a family gathering, sat next to a bibulous but exquisitely well read and educated great uncle who proceeds to regale you with all the stories about the family that no one ever told you before, along with his own opinions about everyone, including yourself.

If you substitue monks for the family, and an ex-Jesuit turned poet and academic for the great uncle (although being bibulous, exquisitely well read and educated is almost a synonym for a Jesuit), then you have The Frontiers of Paradise in a monk’s cowl. It’s a mixture of gossip, history, poetry and anthropology, all twisted together into a unique brew by a man who appears unsure quite what he really thinks about this God business and whether he can really quite free himself of it all and make a new god of poetry (answer: he can’t). If that makes it sound unique, it is.

[Craig Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

A curious little book, part introduction to monasticism, part compendium of odd facts and perspectives for those with an established interest in the subject. Levi divides his excursion into five sections: a set of general thoughts about monasticism; a quick history of monasticism (mostly in the West); an odd section titled "Various Examples in More Detail"; a survey of the culture of monks; and a concluding set of general thoughts, which identifies the core of the monastic urge as "slow rituals and emptiness." Among Levi's central points is that monasticism works best when it keeps its distance from institutional power, to which I offer a hearty "amen."

Hard to figure out just who should read this book. Levi's very very English in his perspective, mixing in lots of references to Oxford, various bits of English history (the suppression of the monks under Henry VIII recurs frequently), and showing more sympathy for elitist perspectives than I might have liked. But that's part of the book's charm. At times it's like listening to a not particularly well organized but very sharp and well read professor taking you on a guided tour of a subject he obviously loves. At times, mostly in section 3 (Various Examples), it's more like listening in on a drill for a trivia contest on an unlikely topic.

Glad I read it, but I'd probably begin exploring monks with Rowan Williams' Wisdom of the Desert (much less sweeping, but much clearer) or one of Thomas Merton's comparative studies of Christianity and Zen.