What treasures lie buried in the “vasty deep” of cyberspace!
I just now discovered MANAS Journal. I was on the prowl for an online comparison of John Tettemer and Thomas Merton. I finally found something in volume 5 , no. 39, September 24, 1952 of the aforementioned journal. Scroll down a bit for a review of Tettemer’s autobiographical I Was a Monk, 1951, entitled “In and Out of Rome.” The writer is presumably the editor of MANAS, Henry Geiger. Near the end, Geiger offers a brief comparison of Tettemer’s book with Merton’s autobiographical 1948 Seven Storey Mountain.
These two fascinating characters deserve an extended comparative study. No surprise there isn’t one, Tettemer being pretty much forgotten except for aficionados of the arcane and the neglected such as your humble correspondent. His mind drifts back to the ’90s and solo backpacking trips into the Sierra Nevada above Bishop, California and nights in the tent reading Tettemer by flashlight at 12,000 feet. Solitude and high mountains make for deep thoughts. Being alone prevents self-loss into the social and sharpens the sense of the mystery of things.
For more on Tettemer see the Wikipedia entry, and here is a more personal response.