| Date | Author | Title | Source | Quotation by Merton |
| 1941/04/18 | Evelyn Waugh | They were still dancing |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 356
| Leaving Gethsemani was very sad....I went to the Cathedral [of Louisville], then to the Public Library: there I read a chapter-the one on Free Will-in Gilson's Spirit of Medieval Philosophy. In the Public Library I didn't even feel like reading any of Evelyn Waugh's fine travel book They Were Still Dancing which I read between trains there before. |
| 1941/04/18 | Graham Greene | Journey without Maps |
Jnl 1 ('39-'41) p. 357
| Difference between the First and Second Times I spent a few hours in Louisville, between trains... The first time, I went to the Library and read Evelyn Waugh's They Were Still Dancing-dipped into Graham Greene's Journey without Maps-(which was about Africa, not Mexico as I had imagined)-and Blake's Poems. The second time I read a little of Gilson's Spirit of Medieval Philosophy. Both times I read most of G. M. Hopkins' poems |
| 1959/11/08 | Laurens Post, Van Der | Lost World of the Kalahari |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 341
| Yet of what Laurens Van der Post says about the Bushmen. Tribal morality degenerated into collective immorality.T. says very convincingly that perhaps original sin is not sin which society inherited from one individual, but sin which each individual contracts from society (Adam = man in the collective sense). Very important idea that one must break with the exterior, "tribal," mechanical and collective society to which one is passively subject, and isolate oneself in order to be actively united in a spiritual community which transcends national, social, and especially tribal limitations. |
| 1961/02/12 | Laurens Post, van der | Dark Eye in Africa: Politics, Psychology |
Ltrs: HGL p. 129
| Have you read a wonderful book called the Dark Eye in Africa by Laurens Van der Post? He is another remarkable person, and on primitive man he also wrote a splendid book about the Bushmen of South Africa, Lost World of the Kalahari. Several other interesting books about these Bushmen are appearing here and there. Most important insights into the reality of primitive man. What you quote AKC as saying about the underlying resentment and contempt in the attitude of men like Frazer and Levy-Bruhl is terribly true. |
| 1961/02/12 | Laurens Post, van der | Lost World of the Kalahary |
Ltrs: HGL p. 129
| Have you read a wonderful book called the Dark Eye in Africa by Laurens Van der Post? He is another remarkable person, and on primitive man he also wrote a splendid book about the Bushmen of South Africa, Lost World of the Kalahari. Several other interesting books about these Bushmen are appearing here and there. Most important insights into the reality of primitive man. What you quote AKC as saying about the underlying resentment and contempt in the attitude of men like Frazer and Levy-Bruhl is terribly true. |
| 1961/07/18 | Placide Tempels | philosophie bantou |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 142-43
| I have thought and spoken... with Père Danielou whom, as theologian, I consider my director and who was here over the weekend. I had planned to go over the whole subject of the civitas Christiana but did not formally and expressly do so. But much was said that really covered that subject.... Recommended [Placide] Temples on Bantu philosophy, new novel of J[ulien] Green (we wrote Green a card in the car returning from Loretto), Corbin and the gnostics. Gnostics angry at Yaweh who deceived them. |
| 1961/11/21 | Laurens Post, van der | Heart of the Hunter |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 182
| I read Laurens van der Post's Heart of the Hunter [New York, 1961]. Dangerous secrets to reveal. Once again I am in favor of the esoteric principles of Clement of Alexandria. Yet I would not want to be deprived of such a book. |
| 1967/07/20 | Janheinz Jahn | Muntu: African Culture and Western World |
Ltrs: CforT p. 282-83
| It is good news to hear you can perhaps use Bantu philosophy in your new book, which sounds like a very good idea by the way. I hope you will keep at it, because that is something I will enjoy reading. The book I referred to is in French (from Dutch) by Pere Placide Tempels, CSSR, La philosophie bantoue, Presence Africaine (publisher). It is a rather old book and you may have to hunt through libraries for it. Also there is another, less good, but more varied (with Voodoo etc.) by Jahainz Jahn, called Muntu. Grove Press did that one, so it is more available. |
| 1967/07/20 | Placide Tempels | philosophie bantou |
Ltrs: CforT p. 282-83
| It is good news to hear you can perhaps use Bantu philosophy in your new book, which sounds like a very good idea by the way. I hope you will keep at it, because that is something I will enjoy reading. The book I referred to is in French (from Dutch) by Pere Placide Tempels, CSSR, La philosophie bantoue, Presence Africaine (publisher). It is a rather old book and you may have to hunt through libraries for it. Also there is another, less good, but more varied (with Voodoo etc.) by Jahainz Jahn, called Muntu. Grove Press did that one, so it is more available. |
| 1967/08/14 | Laurens Post, van der | Dark Eye in Africa: Politics, Psychology |
Ltrs: RtoJ p. 82
| I read Laurens Van Der Post's book The Dark Eye in A. some years ago and was very impressed by it. He has many other good ones too, some you would like even better as they are less abstract. I have had some correspondence with him in the past "¦ Some time ago I saw he had a book out about Russia. The ones on Africa are the best. By the way I am working along those lines a little myself: interested mostly in the religious-political messianic movements, native Churches and whatnot. Especially in Melanesia though. The Cargo cults etc. If you see anything on that, or especially anything good on the Maori, I hope you will let me know about it. I hope your health is all right now. Take care of yourself. Your spring will be coming soon, with our autumn. I think of you often and Aunt Ka too: my best love to all of you out there. |
| 1967/08/24 | Bengt Sundkler | Bantu Prophets in South Africa |
Ltrs: CforT p. 283
| You are much in my thoughts as I continue my explorations of Bantu ideas. I have on interlibrary loan an essential book: Bantu Prophets in South Africa by Bengt Sundkler, Oxford Press, 1961. The thing is not to distill "Bantu philosophy" out into pure speculative projects as we Westerners like to do. This particular book deals with the syncretism of Zulu religion and a kind of Evangelical Christianity in South Africa: prophetic cults (hundreds of them), nativistic and healing sects. Pursuit of health is a central theme. Joining you in your forecast I would say that in our coming Bantu society (is that accurate though, because our Negroes came from Dahomey, maybe that's a different bunch?) there will be considerable interest in medical diagnosis, psychosomatic illness, questions of potency, interesting treatments, resistance against nefarious influence of dead ancestors ("Uncle Toms" perhaps). |