A View from the Ridge: The Testimony of a Twentieth-Century Christian

From Publishers Weekly
Now 80, bestselling novelist West (The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1963) offers a lyrical "testimony of a pilgrim" who "now pauses to draw breath and get his courage up for the last stage of the journey." This spiritual memoir touches upon the events of West's life?his monastic education, military service and family struggles, for example?but ties reminiscences to questions of faith. What, he asks, is evil, and why should we forgive? Why are children victims of violence? How can individual values coexist with inflexible institutions? Why are church hierarchies unlike Jesus? Peppered with excerpts from his 20-plus novels, West's memoir will fascinate his fans. No prior acquaintance with his work is required, however, to appreciate the magnificent concluding chapter in which he faces death, proclaims his hard-won faith and affirms his optimism. "I am a happy spendthrift," West says, "of the golden days that have been granted to me." Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


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In these pages, West reflects on the chronicle of his life and offers us a lyrical, intimate, and profoundly affirming account of the pilgrimage of a twentieth-century Catholic. From his youthful days as postulant in a strictly orthodox Australian religious community, to his painful decision to leave the order, to his experiences as a soldier in the South Pacific of World War II, to his tentative first attempts at the writing life, and finally to his accomplished later years, West sketches a story that in its travails and joys reflects the evolution of both the Catholic faith in this century and the journey that every believer follows in his or her pilgrimage toward God. Whether watching his novels transformed into successful films in Hollywood or recording, in Rome, his firsthand observations of the struggles between Vatican orthodoxy and reformers in the 1960s, West recounts the lifelong evolution of his personal creed of belief. He recalls the difficult collapse of his first marriage and the birth of a new and stronger one, the joys of fatherhood and grandfatherhood, and the colorful spectrum of friends - including European royalty, high clergy of the Vatican, and flamboyant Australian politicos - who have spiced his long life. He muses upon evil, redemption, and the evolution of the Church he loves.


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