IVP - Behind the Books - Merton on Blurbs

Merton on Blurbs

I don't want you to think we are anti-endorsement. We are very grateful for the kind words that are attributed to our books. Nevertheless, since I read it just yesterday, I can't resist quoting a bit from Thomas Merton's A Vow of Conversation.

I am surfeited with words and typescript and print. Surfeited to the point of utter nausea. Surfeited above all with letters. This is so bad that it amounts to a sickness, like the obsessive gluttony of the rich woman in Theodoret who was eating thirty chickens a day until some hermit cured her and brought her to the state where she only ate three. . . .

One place to begin is perhaps in the area of letters. All I know is that when I respond to another request asking for a blurb, I feel like a drunk and incontinent man falling into bed with another woman in spite of himself, and the awful thing is that I can't stop.

Posted by Cindy Bunch at August 25, 2008 4:34 PM