- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: Anchor (2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385721277
- ISBN-13: 978-0385721271
- Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13 x 2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #763,986 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
Book Description
In 1962, at age seventeen, Karen Armstrong entered a convent, eager to meet God. After seven brutally unhappy years as a nun, she left her order to pursue English literature at Oxford. But convent life had profoundly altered her, and coping with the outside world and her expiring faith proved to be excruciating. Her deep solitude and a terrifying illness–diagnosed only years later as epilepsy–marked her forever as an outsider. In her own mind she was a complete failure: as a nun, as an academic, and as a normal woman capable of intimacy. Her future seemed very much in question until she stumbled into comparative theology. What she found, in learning, thinking, and writing about other religions, was the ecstasy and transcendence she had never felt as a nun. Gripping, revelatory, and inspirational, The Spiral Staircase is an extraordinary account of an astonishing spiritual journey.
From the Back Cover
“Enjoyable and deeply interesting. . . . Very rewarding.” –San Francisco Chronicle
“A story about becoming human, being recognized, finally recognizing oneself. . . . It fills the reader with hope.” –The Washington Post Book World
“Riveting. . . . It’s a pleasure to read simply because it’s honest and hopeful. . . . Armstrong is such an evocative writer.” –Newsday
“I loved this powerful and moving account, and read it nonstop.” –Elaine Pagels, author of Beyond Belief
“In . . . Armstrong’s memoir there lurks wisdom about the making and remaking of a life . . . from which all of us could learn.” –The New York Times Book Review
“A powerful memoir. . . . Buoyed by keen intelligence and unflinching self-awareness and honesty. . . . Armstrong is an engaging, energetic writer.” –The Christian Science Monitor
“A minor masterpiece.” –Elle
“Exceptionally impressive. . . . Karen Armstrong’s account of her spiralling journey provokes thought and inspires respect.” –Daily Telegraph
“The story of the making of a writer. . . . It manages to dramatize the writer’s process of intellectual development and to find in it genuine interest, and, indeed, suspense. . . . As an account of the intellectual journey of an intelligent and unique individual, the book is often gripping.” –San Francisco Chronicle
“Candid and compelling, and the sentences are flawless.” –The Dallas Morning News
“Unputdownable–absorbing, moving.” –Daily Mail
“Remarkable. . . . Unflinching. . . . This candid memoir will clarify thinking about the search for the sacred.” –Booklist
“Gripping. . . . Uplifting. . . . Utterly compelling.” –The Edmonton Journal
“Armstrong writes with sensitivity and wisdom. . . . She employs a breadth of learning that reflects the scintillating, shifting light and shade of human experience.” –The Times (London)
“Absorbing. . . . Profoundly inspiring and engaging.” –Tallahassee Democrat
“An honest and affecting book.” –The Independent
“The Spiral Staircase . . . is great. Armstrong is a marvelous writer and her subject matter is meaty. Her subject is the meaning of life.” –Deseret Morning News
“Open and accessible, Armstrong manages to put into words something that most of us cannot express.” –New Statesman
“Moving, insightful. . . . Compulsively readable.” –Library Journal
“A subtle and funny memoir.” –Sunday Telegraph
“A story about becoming human, being recognized, finally recognizing oneself. . . . It fills the reader with hope.” –The Washington Post Book World
“Riveting. . . . It’s a pleasure to read simply because it’s honest and hopeful. . . . Armstrong is such an evocative writer.” –Newsday
“I loved this powerful and moving account, and read it nonstop.” –Elaine Pagels, author of Beyond Belief
“In . . . Armstrong’s memoir there lurks wisdom about the making and remaking of a life . . . from which all of us could learn.” –The New York Times Book Review
“A powerful memoir. . . . Buoyed by keen intelligence and unflinching self-awareness and honesty. . . . Armstrong is an engaging, energetic writer.” –The Christian Science Monitor
“A minor masterpiece.” –Elle
“Exceptionally impressive. . . . Karen Armstrong’s account of her spiralling journey provokes thought and inspires respect.” –Daily Telegraph
“The story of the making of a writer. . . . It manages to dramatize the writer’s process of intellectual development and to find in it genuine interest, and, indeed, suspense. . . . As an account of the intellectual journey of an intelligent and unique individual, the book is often gripping.” –San Francisco Chronicle
“Candid and compelling, and the sentences are flawless.” –The Dallas Morning News
“Unputdownable–absorbing, moving.” –Daily Mail
“Remarkable. . . . Unflinching. . . . This candid memoir will clarify thinking about the search for the sacred.” –Booklist
“Gripping. . . . Uplifting. . . . Utterly compelling.” –The Edmonton Journal
“Armstrong writes with sensitivity and wisdom. . . . She employs a breadth of learning that reflects the scintillating, shifting light and shade of human experience.” –The Times (London)
“Absorbing. . . . Profoundly inspiring and engaging.” –Tallahassee Democrat
“An honest and affecting book.” –The Independent
“The Spiral Staircase . . . is great. Armstrong is a marvelous writer and her subject matter is meaty. Her subject is the meaning of life.” –Deseret Morning News
“Open and accessible, Armstrong manages to put into words something that most of us cannot express.” –New Statesman
“Moving, insightful. . . . Compulsively readable.” –Library Journal
“A subtle and funny memoir.” –Sunday Telegraph
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Most helpful customer reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
ENCOURAGING AND INSPIRATIONAL,
By
This review is from: The Spiral Staircase Cd (Audio CD)
Karen Armstrong speaks to the seekers - seekers of truth, seekers of wisdom, and those who are engaged in a search for God. It's a given that we learn from the lives of others. Yet few have experienced this author's profound spiritual journey and been able to share it so articulately. It is not that her powerful story needs added luster for it stands alone. Yet, hearing this reading in her voice does very much enrich the listener's experience. In addition, it is well worth replaying - a journey one would wish to hear related again and again. For those not familiar with her best-selling hardcover book, Ms. Armstrong spent 7 years in a Roman Catholic convent. She left that protected place in 1969, deeply disappointed that she had not found God there. The world she reentered was vastly changed, and she fell prey to panic attacks and inexplicable seizures - enough to terrify the bravest soul. She turned to psychiatry for help but that was a dead-end; her search for work was fruitless. At last, in 1976, it was found that she had epilepsy and she received appropriate care. Next, she turned to writing and an exploration of faiths other than Christianity, much to the benefit of a world anxious for words of reassurance. She is not only a role model but a splendid teacher as well. All who listen to her words are her beneficiaries.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Touching, Personal, and Paradigmatic,
By
This review is from: The Spiral Staircase (Paperback)
Karen Armstrong enrolled in a monestary at the age of 17. A young women with a keen mind, Armstrong struggled against the dogmatism of the religious order. Breaking down she applied for a dispensation and left to start life as a secular. What a life she has lived!
I found myself identifying very strongly with Armonstrong at almost every turn, and yet in some respects I am her exact opposite. I am a male, happily married with three beautiful children, protestant and an ordained minister. Yet there is something about her story that transcends all of that and touches so many of us who grew up in the church at the peak of the modern era. Armstrong has followed what seems to me to be a pattern. I say this respectfully, as I appreciate that her life is hers alone and not mine or anyone elses. I present her as a pattern, but only in a tentative kind of way. Her own peculiarities and personality are too precious to be lost in the "universal." She must remain an individual and be read and respected as one. Sympathy for her struggles, hurts, pains and adjustments and shared joy in her triumphs and successes will be easily profered. Her story is powerful, personal and very touching. But, what is this pattern I see. It is, I said, a pattern followed by the masses since the 1950s. It follows seven basic steps: 1. Uncritical acceptance of simple religious truth 2. Whole hearted devotion to that simple religious truth 3. Confusion at the relation of simple religious truth with existential reality 4. Staged withdrawl from religious devotion 5. Denial of religious truth 6. Awareness of a hunger for religious truth 7. Acceptance of a complicated religious truth The stages mirror the cultural movement of Western Civilization. In the 50s and 60s churches were packed to overflowing in a strange and historically unique way. Then, all of a sudden, it lost its relevancy. People struggled to see how the religious devotion they learned and practiced made sense in the 20th century. Some transferred their religious devotion to other faiths, most simply "dropped out." More recently there has been a religious awakening, a kind of revival of interest in spirituality and religious devotion, but on terms radically different than those of yesteryear. It is much more personal, much more individual, and a lot less dogmatic and confessional. Armstrong's book provides a challenge to those religious enterprises that have sought to renew the past. What she demonstrates is movement. Her life has been one of constant movement. It is during those moments when she sought to stand still and hold steady in a fixed spot that her life broke down. So it is with our culture. We have moved from the religious turf of yesteryear. We live in different places, spiritually speaking. Our conception of religious realia is very different from what it was just twenty years ago. Armstong's life story is a powerful self-portait of this truth. Life is truth! Religion that seeks to subvert or manage life in ways that diminish its vitality and power have no place. The great narrative of modernity has broken down into a series of personal and community stories that need to be heard and respected. Philsophically, culturally and spiritually we are not what our grandparents were, and for this I thank God. Thank you Karen for the privilege of accompanying you on your restrospective voyage. I learned a lot about myself. God bless you. Andrew R. McGinn Mississauga, ON
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Read,
By C.A.B. (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (Hardcover)
In today's society, we sometimes hide behind masks or fail to question why we do the things we do. I think that Karen Armstrong's memoir, in part centered on Eliot's "Ash Wednesday", describes her questioning of who she is and who God is. This time, she wrote her story from a more mature place that was deeper than denial or anger.
Finding no God, Karen left an authoritarian convent feeling simultaneously free, yet adrift, with no clear way out. While believing her relationship with God was over, she wrestled with shifts in her inner life, undiagnosed epilepsy, and career ups and downs. She likened herself to Tennyson's Lady of Shallot whose struggle to free herself from her prison almost destroyed her. Eventually, she found God, both unknowable and compassionate. Also, Karen's wisdom and compassion has permeated her work with people from many religious backgrounds. I was interested in her understanding of the roles of belief, action, and compassion in religion. Her quote of Louis Massignon's "science of compassion" was helpful when I wrote school papers, or in ordinary conversations. I was particularly grateful for her insights into Islam, including her reminders not to judge any faith by its extremists and to consider how we contributed to the situation.
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