xt7c599z3g2x https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7c599z3g2x/data/mets.xml  Thomas Merton 1958-12-15 This letter is from collection 75m28 Thomas Merton papers. archival material 75m28 English  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Thomas Merton correspondence Letter from Thomas Merton to Boris Pasternak, December 15, 1958 text Letter from Thomas Merton to Boris Pasternak, December 15, 1958 1958 1958-12-15 2023 true xt7c599z3g2x section xt7c599z3g2x Gethsemani Abbey
Trappist P.O. Ky.

Dec o 15 ,1958.

My Dear Pasternak:

For a long time I have been holding my breath in the midst of the
turmoil of incoppara‘ole nonsense that has surrounded your name in every part
of the world. It has been a tremendous relief to hear from you indirectly and
to learn that things are once again beginning to regain some semblame of
sanity. You,like Job, have been surrounded not by three or four misguided
comforters, but by a whole world of madman, some of them reproaching you with
reproach/es that have been compliments, others complimenting you with compli-
ments that have been reproaches, and seemingly very few of them have under-
stood one word of what you have written. Fbr that could be more blind and absurd
than to make a political weapon, for one side or another, out of a book that
declares clearly the futility and mlignity of tendencies on every side which
team to destroy man in his spiritual substance? Perhaps it is the destiny of
every free man to bring out, like a poultice, the folly and theputmscence of
our world: but such a vocation is not always pleasant.

One of the first things I did when I heard about the Nobel affair ww to
write a letter to Surkov of the Writers' Union declaring that I Spoke for all
those who were fully aware that your book was not a political pamphlet and was
not intended to be taken as such, and that it was a great work of art of which
Soviet Russia should have the sense to be proud.l do not know if it did any
good. Incidentally, since wehave here no newspapers or radios, it was quite
"accidental" or rather providential that I heard so pmch about the case so soon.

I do not know what the latest deve10pments my be. fit the question of
mating Dr Zh into a movie in Malice should arise and become an issue with you
over there, I would strongly advise that you attach no importance to my movie
but rather that you should, if the case arises to make a decision, rather
o nose in: yourself to it. The movies here are quite bad, and I have always finn-
Iy resisted any attempt to use one of my books in a film. If a refusal on this
point, by you, would aid your position with your government, then I would ad-
vise making such a refusal. Of course, remember I am perhaps not the wisest
judge. But certainly a Hollywood production of Dr Zh would do more harm than
good in every respect.

I have indeed been praying for you, and so have my young novices, young and
pure souls, who know of you and who have been touched by your worrierful poem
on Christ in the Garden of Gethsemani. we shall continue our prayers.

Do not let yourself be disturbed too much by either friends or enemies. I
hope you will clear away every obstacle and continue with your writing on the
great work that you surely have in store for us. May you final again within
yourself the deep lifegiving silence which is 39mins truth and the source
of truth: for it is a fountain of life and a window into the abyss of eternity
and God.m1t is the wonderful silence of the winter niglt inwhhoh it Yurii
sat up in the sleeping house and wrote his poems while the wolves howled out-
side: but it is an inviolable house of peace, a fortress in the depths of our
being, the virginity of our soul where, like the Blessed Mary, we give our
brave and humble answer to life, the "Yes" which brings Lst into the world.

I cannot refrain from speaking to you of Abraham, his laughter and
prostration when he was told by God that he, a hundred years old, should be
the father of a great nation and that from his body, almst dead, would some
life to the whole world. The peak of liberty is in this laughter, which is a
resurrection and a sacrament of the resurrection, the sweet and clean folly of
the soul who has been liberated by God from his own nothingness. Here is what
Philo of Alsmmiaia has said abOut it:

" To convict us, so often proud and stiff—necked at the smallest cause,

 

 Abraham falls down (Genesis 17:17) and straightway laughs with the laughter

of the soul: moumfulness in his face but smiles in his m where joy vast

and unalloyed has made its lodging. Fbr the sage who receives an inheritance

of good beyond his hope, these two things were simultaneous, to fall and to has
laugh. He falls as 3 pl- that the proved nothingmss of his mortal. being
keeps him from boasting. f - laughs because God alone is good and the giver

of great gifts that make strong his piety. Let created being fall with mour-
m’ng in its face: it is only that nature demands, so feeble of footing, so sad
of heart in itself. Then let it be raised up by God and laugh, for God alone

is its support and joy."

I wish you this laughter in any sorrow that may touch your life.

Kurt W. has sent me the Essai Auto‘ io'rra hi e and I am reading it with
great pleasure. In my turn I am sean—gw you a 500% of mine, also autobiographi-
cal in character, called the Sim of Jonas. It may take a little til-1e to get
them. New Directions may - 0 sea 1 u a small volume of my poems, of winch
I an by no means proud.

I am learning Russian now, a little at a time, and later on I would be
grateful if you would help me to get a few good ample books in finssian on
which to practice-- some good easy prose, and some poerst there a Russian
book of saints? Someone has suggested that perhaps the legends 03? Ste Evgraf,
Lara etc xflght throw light on your elmracters. But anyway, I know nothing of
the Russian saints except of course for Seraphim of Sarov. I a": very interes-
ted fim the Struggle between St Nilus and Joseph of Volotsk—-— you can easily
imagine W.

I hope this letter will reach you by Christmas, and it will bring you
my blessings and my prayers and my deep affectionfior the I‘Ioly Feast. My
second Christmas Mass is for your intentiom and for your family: ani I will
feast with you spiritually in the light of the Child of God Who comes shyly and
silently into the midst of our darkness and trandi‘oms the winter night into
rcomedies for those who, like the Shepherds and the humble Kings, come to find
Him where no one thinks of looking: in the obviousness and poverty of man‘s
ordinary everyday life.

Faithfufly yours in Christ,