A. G. Sertillanges (1863–1948)

This is a beautiful book. If your motivation the pursuit of truth, this is a guide and a call to live that vocation.

I had this book on my "to read" list for a while, and when I heard it recommended again recently, I checked it out from my local library. 30 pages in, I ordered my own copy, and when it arrived, started over, from the front, highlighter in hand.

If truth--not merely facts--drives your intellectual life Sertillanges is an encourager and aid to regain focus. He challenges our show more tendency to self-distraction, which unfortunately is encouraged at every turn by many forces in our culture. He reminds us that to create anything worthwhile takes time and focus.

This is not your typical productivity book. He freely admits that a life dedicated to pursuing truth will probably not bring you fame and fortune. He admits that many of us can't even make it our day job. This is not a book about how to out-pace the competition. It is a exhortation to be true to the call to pursue truth.

Some of his advice may seem quant--notecards for taking notes and organizing them. But his principles are timeless. (And to be fair, index cards don't crash or get corrupted by an update!)

This will be a book that I will re-read, not so much for his bits of practical advice, though they are good reminders to keep me on track, but more so to rekindle my love of truth from his very contagious love for it. show less

Sertillanges (1863-1948) was a French Dominican brother whose scholarly specialty was the moral theory of Thomas Aquinas. The book assumes a reader who is Catholic, open to Thomism, and sympathetic to the Catholic mystical tradition. In sum, I would characterize this book as a Catholic mystic's take on the intellectual life: its objectives, its methods, its benefits.

This approach to the subject provides some valuable insight and wisdom into the intellectual life: that it cannot be divorced show more from the total person; that it requires the virtues of solitude, humility, and commitment; that its essence is not reading and writing, but thinking and contemplating truth; that it cannot be fruitful apart from the soul's connection with God. He interestingly suggests that one can read too much: only a few books are worthy of our time. He encourages selectivity in choosing what we read and study. Reading is not the end but the beginning of our labor; reflection is the desired state.

I confess that I am not moved or motivated by mysticism. It seems to me to be no more than an unhealthy focus on one's emotional response to the contemplation of Truth, Beauty and God. It's not that the emotional response is bad, but the focus on it as the end of our being. And I apply that criticism to Sertillanges here. I also found his practical suggestions to be either understandably obsolete (the first edition of the book was written in 1920) or simply expressed in terms of emotion which does not translate well into praxis. In addition, I found his recommendations to be very general and difficult to apply to my specific situation. It is for all these reasons that I give this book three stars, instead of four or five as others have done.

Nevertheless, I strongly recommend reading this book. It will make you rethink your values and principles as a thinker and scholar. show less

An interesting book which someone wanted me to read. They had read it and was impressed as they had been to the Holy Land a few times and thought it was an important collection of reflections about the Old City of Jerusalem and the last moments of Jesus on the cross.
The book is actually outdated theologically (pre Vatican II). It is interesting in that it is a reflection from the author's own living in Jerusalem and becoming aware that archeological insights can add historical context to show more anyone's prayer on the death of Jesus. The book has an imprimatur & nihil obstat.
Sertillanges spends some time on the character of Judas but leaves him as a conflicted person who tore himself apart, literally. The final sections are the most poetic and where his French sensibility and command of language is best utilized. He does fall victim to conflating Mary Magdalene with a prostitute (correspondance theory) and the blood libel on the Jews as well as a few other distractions like the Virgin Mary as the Co-redemptress. I'm not sure I would recommend this to other people especially if they were unacquainted with other points of view of Catholic theology but it gave me food for thought, and, considering when it was written (1930), ahead of its time. The book relies heavily on the map layout of the reputed area of Golgotha.
I found the best part of the book to be the final chapters where he wasn't focused on Jesus overlooking the city from the cross but reflecting on the resurrection and the promise of the sealed tomb.
The author is a French Dominican who edited the Revue Thomiste. show less

This is a book devoted to the intellectual life as a vocation. It is in great part spiritual, but also practical and in its essence it demonstrates, I believe, the two are not at odds. If at least part of your purpose in reading is to improve yourself this is a book that is for you. The title sounds imposing and the intellectual life is not for everyone, but if you take the time, and this is a short book, to consider the practical recommendations in this classic work you are likely to find show more aspects of the book that will prove useful in your reading life. This short book presents chapters on organization of one's work, time, and life. However, the best chapter for me was chapter seven, "Preparation for Work", which focused on reading, memory, and note-taking. His recommendation for reading is to read little, but by that he means thinking about what you read rather than picking up just any book willy-nilly. More importantly he distinguishes between types of reading:
"One reads for one's formation and to become somebody; one reads in view of a particular task; one reads to acquire a habit of work and the love of what is good; one reads for relaxation."
It is up to the individual to decide how to allocate his reading time among these four areas and the author is primarily interested in promoting the first three kinds of reading. This is a good example of the type of practical advice that readers and thinkers may glean from this book. I found it both entertaining and educational and may return to it as my intellectual life progresses. show less