Virgin Time

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful fun read, simply could not put it down!
Review: Although I do not consider myself to be religious and have seldom set foot in a Catholic Church, I found this book captivating. It is refreshingly honest and simple to read and the characters are charming and sometimes quirky. The narrator has spent her life trying to break free of her childhood Catholic roots only to find herself drawn back into them in middle age. She begins her pilgrimmage in Italy with a group of agnostic British couples and moves on to a group of Friars and Nuns, who are delightfully humorous and not at all what one would expect them to be. Throughout her trips in Italy we learn bits and pieces of her childhood along with the story of St. Francis and St. Clare. The places she stays and sees are described beautifully and I felt as though I were on the trip with her. The book is fun and charming to read and I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth it.
Review: As memoir and (especially) travelog, VIRGIN TIME works reasonably well. The author has a quietly introspective prose style well suited to the topic. The reminiscences are well-drawn, and her observations of "sacred travel" are astute and entertaining.

But I bought the book to learn something of the contemplative life, and come away feeling like I know nothing more than when I began. This may be due to a sharp divide between two parts of the book: The first, an intertwined memoir/travelog, and the second, a crimped and uninforming description of a retreat at a dismal-sounding kind-of-a-sort-of-a-monastery in xenophobic Northern California.

I almost got the impression that the second piece had been grafted onto the first to complete the book or bring it up to a publishable size. This is a shame; the lesson I get from the California retreat is that retreats are about as pleasant and meaningful as giving up gumdrops for Lent.

And about contemplation itself we learn almost nothing.

I suppose I could just be dense; it's a fersure that I'm not a New Age type and look *very* askance at asceticism. (Most ascetics I've met are prideful people who look down their noses at those of us who try to live balanced and uniformly modest lives.)

Anyway. The book is worth reading until the author starts heading up to Northern California. Once you get to that point, put it down. There's nothing further up the road.

Rating:
Summary: A remarkable book about contemplative prayer and pray-ers.
Review: If you're interested in contemplative prayer, this author knows the subject well. Her years with contemplative nuns as a child, her own intense search, and the contemplatives she runs across in her travels are described with impressive perception and depth. A remarkable book, rich in specific insights and details that will be of particular interest and meaning to contemplatives.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth it.
Review: Read for a college Theology class. Uninteresting. She has a spiritual journey. It's just not worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Ambivalent recommendation
Review: Virgin Time is a book that half way in I was nearly ready to toss - the walking trip thru Umbria seemed to have little relationship to her childhood memories of a Catholic upbringing and education. Only at her return to Assisi with a Franciscan study group did the structure of the book begin to appear. Only in the last chapters of the book did the need for the first half of the book become apparent.

As for the internal spiritual journey, Patricia Hampl has a perspective that is useful and uncommon - the problem is not God but is prayer. Her resolution comes on retreat in Northern California - a resolution that has several insightful observations on prayer.

There are individuals for whom Virgin Time should be "required reading" - others will find that it is an interesting one-time read from which they will learn little other than how personal a spiritual path must be - different questions as primary - different aspects of the answer missing.

The best way to learn if this book is for you is to read it.

Rating:
Summary: Ambivalent recommendation
Review: Virgin Time is a book that half way in I was nearly ready to toss - the walking trip thru Umbria seemed to have little relationship to her childhood memories of a Catholic upbringing and education. Only at her return to Assisi with a Franciscan study group did the structure of the book begin to appear. Only in the last chapters of the book did the need for the first half of the book become apparent.

As for the internal spiritual journey, Patricia Hampl has a perspective that is useful and uncommon - the problem is not God but is prayer. Her resolution comes on retreat in Northern California - a resolution that has several insightful observations on prayer.

There are individuals for whom Virgin Time should be "required reading" - others will find that it is an interesting one-time read from which they will learn little other than how personal a spiritual path must be - different questions as primary - different aspects of the answer missing.

The best way to learn if this book is for you is to read it.