All We Know of Heaven

All We Know of Heaven by Rémy Rougeau read like a breath - short and spare. I began reading the small novel on a flight to Seattle, and had it been a longer flight I would have read it straight through in one sitting and thus risked it slipping from my memory, the way small treasures can. Instead I paused in my reading long enough to find my hotel, shop, eat dinner. As I strode the streets of Seattle, the story bubbled in the back of my mind. I finished it that evening in the spaciousness of my hotel room. Alone, without my normal distractions, it simmered. As I went to bed that night having finished Heaven, the story cooled on the window ledge high above the city, and by morning, it had set.Situated in a Cistercian (Trappist) monastery in Manitoba, this is the story of a young monk's first years of Catholic monasticism. The Cistercians are an order known for their atmosphere of silence, and perhaps this is why Heaven is pervaded by a sweet and gentle quietness.The story is about the difficulties and demons Brother Antoine (née Paul) meets in those first years at the monastery. It is about the foibles of fellow monks. It is about facing pride, anger, jealousy, bewilderment, lust; and facing these in the silent and remarkably rich world of the farm monastery, among cows and chickens, birth and death. Populated even by a visit by Tibetan monks and a Buddhist lesson on karma, the story is contemporary. The order is concerned about their dwindling numbers. Reading the book jacket and the dedication to the Cistercian and Benedictine monks with whom the author has lived and worked for many years, I wonder how much of this novel is autobiographical. But if there is a lesson to take from this book and if there is a lesson I take from my own Buddhist meditation practice and study, it is this: The book is both autobiography and about all of our own lives. It is our collective story as frail and human beings. It is about facing and trying to understand ourselves - "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Or, as the author remembers from the Psalms when a beloved fellow Brother dies, "A short span you have made my days, O God, and my life is as naught before you. Only a breath is any human existence. You dissolve like a cobweb all that is dear to him." This book is about the beauty of one small kind gesture, the offering of a Tylenol to a fellow monk in pain, and about the raw confusing ugliness of killing kittens. It is a tale of the beauty and the agony of life.Spare like a breath, All We Know of Heaven almost slipped by me. But it caught. It is like life: Everything and nothing are here. - I read All We Know of Heaven on a trip to a software development conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I read the book on the way to and in Seattle; the first draft of this review was written on the flight from Seattle to Denver. The conference in Santa Fe occupied all the daylight hours, and there was only one chance on the last day to drive out of town to see the a

This book jumped into my hands a few days ago, and I couldn't put it down. It's not that the plot twists and turns or that the characters are so riveting--though they are, it was just a very beautifully told story. Soft and quiet, like a stream to sit by, compelling in the most understated way. I'm not Catholic, but who hasn't been intrigued by the life of a monk? Growing up on the Canadian border (Buffalo) I was very comfortable and familiar with the French-Canadian theme, if not the religious aspects. I was very taken by the humanity of these people, not saintly and overly pious as I had imagined. Not completely sure of their choices and convictions, any more than any of us are. I simply loved this book and will be sharing it with many friends who may at first glance find it an odd selection. I highly recommend it not only for the rare glimpse of a rare life it offers, but for the questions it provokes in one's own life. I will be looking for future works by this author.

Too many of us, I suspect, tend to think that men and women who live cloistered lives are so otherworldly that they walk a few inches off the ground. This view of monastic life is also what makes it so attractive to a layperson worn out by the secular rat race. The monastery seems to offer a haven from everyday hassles, providing a tranquill setting that brings out the best in a person, allows him or her to touch base with what's really important, and get in touch with the inner self and with God.Bosh! This way of thinking of monastic life is too precious to be true, and one of the merits of Rougeau's wonderful *All We Know of Heaven* is to throw water on that sacred cow. His novel--really, a collection of short story-like vignettes that revolve around the monastic experiences of a young Trappist novice--shows that monks are just like the rest of us: overworked, underappreciated, itchy from sexual urges, idiosyncratic, lovable at times, irritating at others, and always deeply, deeply interesting. The vignettes and their assortment of delightfully oddball characters remind us that the human search for God is always located in a specific place and time and personality. Saints aren't etherial types who walk an inch off the ground. They're folks who, in spite of their oddities and flaws, embrace their hunger for God and remain loyal to it. In reading the stories of these monks, we read stories about ourselves.A very good book, reminiscent in places of Evelyn Waugh's tone and dry humor. It's not uncommon for monks to write books about the spiritual life, but it's rare for them to write novels. Remy Rougeau has broken that barrier in fine style here.

I am rarely brief in a review, but few words seem better in the case of Rougeau's first work. Anyone who spends enough time in a monastic setting realizes that life in a monastery is about as far from a mediaeval romance as one can get. Rougeau has done a splendid job in telling a down to earth, non-romantic, true-to-life story. Antoine's joys and sorrows are undoubtedly cast in the light of Rougeau's own monastic experience, giving this book both a raw and refined character; very believable. One feels almost like a member of St. Norbert's by the end of this novel.One to be read from cover to cover, slowly savoring each page, like a fine wine from a monastery cellar.

I discovered this book via an article written by Rémy Rougeau. Having always had an interest in monasticism I was intrigued by the idea. I immediately picked up a copy.The novel is almost an anthology centered on the life of a Cistercian, French Canadian monk. Starting with Paul Seneschal taking leave of his parents for monastic life, it follows him as he is initiated into the abbey and eventually becomes Brother Antoine. Each story is virtually independent, centering on certain events and their subsequent revelations.Paul's interacts with everyone from Buddhist monks to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer steadily lead him down the life-long path he has begun toward enlightenment. As he learns and grows the reader cannot help but follow.This is a wonderful book. Refreshing in a sea of contemporary literature in which simple elegance is a rarity, Rougeau's novel defines the phrase.