- Hardcover: 336 pages
- Publisher: Knopf Canada (Feb 24 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0676974678
- ISBN-13: 978-0676974676
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14.7 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 544 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #559,430 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
"I have decided to try again," Karen Armstrong writes at the beginning of The Spiral Staircase, in explaining why she is telling her life story for a second time, 20 years after doing so in Beginning the World. "We should probably all pause to confront our past from time to time, because it changes its meaning as our circumstances alter." That's a clue to the sort of open-minded and intensive inquiry that Armstrong is capable of, which has made her, in those 20 years, a bestselling theologian and historian of religion, known for such hugely popular books as The Battle for God, A History of God, and Islam: A Short History.
In the lucid yet reflective manner that is Armstrong's trademark, The Spiral Staircase recalls her painful early life as a nun, her even more painful reentry into secular society, and most compellingly, the long-undiagnosed epilepsy that made her life a horror show of phantom visions and misplaced hours. We follow Armstrong to the Middle East and elsewhere as she searches for answers to questions no less daunting than the significance of faith. Yet what drives Armstrong is her distaste for and distrust of those who see only black or white, never shades of grey. "I disliked the crusading certainty of Ayatollah Khomeini, yet I was also disturbed by the shrill rhetoric of some of Rushdie's champions," she writes in the wake of debate over Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses and the ensuing fatwa issued by the extremists on the Islamic right. Indeed, as religious dogma divides the world in ever new ways, Armstrong's learned views are especially resonant. But The Spiral Staircase, its name inspired by T.S. Eliot's poem cycle Ash-Wednesday, is not a polemic, despite Armstrong's forceful and persuasive arguments for religious tolerance. Rather, it's a beautiful letter sent by a gifted writer attempting to decode the meaning of her life. Who can't relate? --Kim Hughes
From Publishers Weekly
In 1962, British writer Armstrong (The Battle for God, etc.) entered a Roman Catholic convent, smitten by the desire to "find God." She was 17 years old at the time—too young, she recognizes now, to have made such a momentous decision. Armstrong’s 1981 memoir Through the Narrow Gate described her frustrating, lonely experience of cloistered life and her decision, at 24, to renounce her vows. In its sequel, Beginning the World (1983), she tried to explain her readjustment to the secular world—and failed. "It is the worst book I have ever written," she declares in the preface to this new volume: "it was far too soon to write about those years"; "it was not a truthful account"; "I was told to present myself in as positive and lively a light as possible." The true story, which she relates in this second sequel, was far more conflicted and intellectually vibrant. Her departure from the convent, she writes, actually made her quite sad; she was "constantly wracked by a very great regret" and suffering on top of it with the symptoms of undiagnosed temporal lobe epilepsy. How she emerged from such darkness to make a career as a writer whose books honor spiritual concerns while maintaining intellectual freedom and rigor—this is Armstrong’s real concern, and the one that will be of most interest to the fans of her many acclaimed works.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 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.
3 of 3 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.
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.
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