Thomas Merton: The Prolific Monk

James Forest. Thomas Merton: A Pictorial Biography. New York : Paulist Press, 1980. 102 pp. Monica Furlong. Merton: A Biography. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980. 332 + xx pp. Ross Labrie. The Art of Thomas Merton. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University, 1979. 188 + xiii pp. Sister Thérèse Lentfoehr. Words and Silence: On the Poetry of Thomas Merton. New York: New Directions, 1979. 166 + viii pp. George Woodcock. Thomas Merton, Monk and Poet: A Critical Study. Vancouver, B.C.: Douglas & Mclntyre, 1978. 200 pp. When the far-from-anonymous Trappist monk Thomas Merton died of acci- dental electrocution in Bangkok in December 1968, he succeeded with this single act in opening the floodgates of critical and biographical commentary which hitherto he had largely kept closed. Although there had been a modest number of master's and doctoral theses on various aspects of his work since the 1950s, his death provided the occasion for a flood of scholarly studies and fraternal tributes. Like Louis XV, Merton could have appropriately remarked on that fateful day in December: 'Après moi le déluge. "