Time to Keep Silence

Patrick Leigh Fermor set off as a teenager to make his way across Europe, as recorded in his classic memoirs,A Time of GiftsandBetween the Woods and the Water. Later he fought with local partisans against the Nazi occupiers of Crete.A Time to Keep Silencestands out among Leigh Fermor's various tales of travel and adventure because it is more an inward than an outward voyage. Here Leigh Fermor chronicles his several sojourns in some of Europe's oldest and most celebrated monasteries. He stays at the Abbey of Wandrille, a great repository of art and learning; at Solesmes, famous for its revival of Gregorian Chant; and finally at the deeply ascetic Trappist monastery of La Grande Trappe, where monks take a vow of silence. Finally, he pays a visit to the abandoned rock monasteries of Cappadocia, cells and chapels hewn from the stony spires of a moonlike landscape, a place where he seeks to some trace of the life of the earliest Christian anchorites. Throughout this short, entrancing book Leigh Fermor thinks hard about the meaning of silence and solitude for modern life, especially for those who, like himself, are not a member of any church. Leigh Fermor writes, "In the seclusion of a cellan existence whose quietness is only varied by the silent meals, the solemnity of ritual, and long solitary walks in the woodsthe troubled waters of the mind grow still and clear, and much that is hidden away and all that clouds it floats to the surface and can be skimmed away; and after a time one reaches a state of peace that is unthought of in the ordinary world."Fermor, Patrick Leigh is the author of 'Time to Keep Silence ', published 2007 under ISBN 9781590172445 and ISBN 1590172442.