An emotive, spiritually intimate, and often quite moving memoir by
an English woman who entered an austere Catholic Order in 1962
before the sweeping changes initiated by Vatican II - and a tribute
to sister nuns, kind or cruel, who "were striving for a superhuman
ideal and not surprisingly made mistakes." At 17, Karen, daughter
of loving middle-class parents, was a sensitive, unsophisticated
loner, unhappy with her appearance and a bit frightened of a world
of men-and-women. Charmed by the serenity and intelligence of her
school's headmistress, Mother Katherine, and against the wishes of
her parents, Karen entered the Order as a postulant. The early
months at the convent offered some disagreeable but challenging
surprises: medieval underwear, laundry soap for the weekly bath,
and, worst, the rule of strict silence except for two hours a day.
Sometimes "it all seemed so contrived and unreal, like performing
in a play." But the two-year novitiate began the severest test,
especially in living the Word: "I would grind myself to a powder if
by doing so I could accomplish God's will." Karen, now Sister
Martha, engaged in a bitter battle with Self as a novice, after her
final vows, and as a Scholastic preparing to teach. Then, the
tortured, insuppressible demands of mind and body brought about a
final crisis. Desiring so much the selfless life, Sister Martha
attempted to draw spiritual growth from meaningless tasks,
anachronistic punishments (even self-flagellation), a racking,
"Karen"-crushing self-analysis. Some of her superiors, clinging to
archaic rules like a "guard rail in a swimming pool," seem
unnaturally cruel - forcing food upon often-nauseated Sister
Martha, insisting her fainting and dizzy spells were due to
"pride." The last breakdown came during her studies at Oxford, when
intellectual thrust and integrity warred openly with "blind
obedience"; in 1969, Karen received permission to leave and break
her vows. "I rarely felt at peace," she grieves, "but at another
level I was happy. . . . Religious life is about love and love is
about risk. Perhaps none of us risked enough." Despite the
gripping, widely-appealing details of convent life, an essentially
religious confession - written with affection, some humor, and a
bittersweet regret. (Kirkus Reviews)
'Through the Narrow Gate' is Karen Armstrong's memoir of life inside a Catholic convent in the 1960s. With gentleness and honesty, Armstrong takes her readers on a revelatory journey that begins with her decision, at the age of seventeen, to devote her life to God as a nun. Yet once she embarked upon her spiritual training, she encountered a frightening and oppressive world, fossilized by tradition, which moulded, isolated and pushed her to the limit of what she could endure.
The book was an international best-seller when it was first published in 1981. This revised edition, with a new introduction by the author, brings Karen Armstrong's remarkable story of devotion and suffering to a new generation of readers.
“This articulate and sensitive writer spares no punches in her account of the agonising fight to find herself under the weight of rules and expectations, lies and aggression… 'Through the Narrow Gate' is written as racily and as emotionally as a novel… the picture of convent life is vivid and terrifying.”
GOOD HOUSEKEEPING
“Painful and honest…Karen Armstrong's simple account of her struggles – both in pursuit of that self-death that the true religious craves, and, later, against her unconscious reflection of life in an ultra-strict Order – says a great deal about destructive trends in modern life… A very moving book.”
DAILY TELEGRAPH
“The strength of this unself-pitying chronicle is the author's capacity to convey the overwhelming attraction of the life she sought, even as she documents its shattering effect on the human personality… A scrupulous record of one woman's spiritual journey, excellently written and profoundly moving.”
COSMOPOLITAN
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