Infinity of Little Hours(ISBN=) 英文原版

　　This is a unique and compelling look into the hidden world of
the Carthusians – the western world’s most ascetic monastic order.
In 1960, five young men arrived at the imposing gates of
Parkminster in West Sussex, the largest centre of the Carthusians –
the most rigorous and ascetic monastic order in the Western world.
This is the story of their five-year journey into a society
virtually unchanged in its behaviour and lifestyle since its
foundations in 1084. “An Infinity of Little Hours” is a uniquely
intimate portrait of the customs and practices of a monastic order
almost entirely unknown until now. It is also a drama of the men’s
struggle as they avoid the 1960s – the decade of hedonism, music,
fashion and amorality – and enter an entirely different era and a
spiritual world of their own making. After five years each must
face a choice: to make “solemn profession” and never leave
Parkminster; or to turn his back on his life’s ambition to find God
in solitude. A remarkable investigative work, the book combines
first-hand testimony with unique source material, to describe the
Carthusian life. And in the final chapter, which recounts a reunion
forty years after the events described elsewhere in the book, Nancy
Klein Maguire reveals which of the five succeeded in their quest –
and which did not.

　　Nancy Klein Maguire is the author of numerous publications on
the relationship of theatre and politics in the seventeenth
century. She frequently reviews books, most recently in the Los
Angeles Times Book Review. She has been a Scholar-in-Residence at
the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC since 1983.

　　”Maguire has produced a vivid, gripping and deeply touching
picture of a world that is now lost. For an outsider to enter such
a closed society and to capture its essence is an astonishing
achievement: this is a work of history, but it has all the best
qualities of a psychological novel.” Diarmiud MacCullogh “It is
fascinating to enter, if only for a few hours, into this way of
life, where extreme devotion forms at last a bit of a bulwark
against humanity’s digressions.” Los Angeles Times”