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Review
The quotations, especially from the letters, are a revelation and delight. (P. J. Kavanagh, Spectator )
The reissue of this important biography... will be welcomed, not only by those already deeply engaged with Newman's life and work, but also with that ever increasing number of people in whom recent events and the advancement of the canonisation process have aroused an interest in his real personality... Ian Ker's book, running to some 770 pages, is the modern biography for the modern reader... With Newman's canonisation fully expected by the end of this year the appearance of this book provides an opening into a new stage of a great man's posthumous life. Newman's rich legacy, in so many areas of history, theology, philosophy and culture, let alone spirtuality, continues to benefit us all. (Peter Costello, The Irish Catholic )
Revised and updated since its first publication in 1988, this masterly biography makes clear how Newman came to cut such a commanding intellectual and spiritual figure in his own age and today. (Michael Kerrigan, The Scotsman )
Throughout, the proseis lucid and engaging, the analysis is thorough and the coverage of the subject is extensive. (Alison Jack, Expository Times )
The additional material...makes the biography the most comprehensive and up-to-date study of Newman available. Fr Ker must be commended for a work which invaluably contributes to an historically true and fundamentally honest understanding of one of the greatest thinkers of our age. (Simon Caldwell, Catholic Herald )
The reissue of this important biography... will be welcomed, not only by those already deeply engaged with Newman's life and work, but also with that ever increasing number of people in whom recent events and the advancement of the canonisation process have aroused an interest in his real personality... Ian Ker's book, running to some 770 pages, is the modern biography for the modern reader... With Newman's canonisation fully expected by the end of this year the appearance of this book provides an opening into a new stage of a great man's posthumous life. Newman's rich legacy, in so many areas of history, theology, philosophy and culture, let alone spirtuality, continues to benefit us all. (Peter Costello, The Irish Catholic )
Revised and updated since its first publication in 1988, this masterly biography makes clear how Newman came to cut such a commanding intellectual and spiritual figure in his own age and today. (Michael Kerrigan, The Scotsman )
Throughout, the proseis lucid and engaging, the analysis is thorough and the coverage of the subject is extensive. (Alison Jack, Expository Times )
The additional material...makes the biography the most comprehensive and up-to-date study of Newman available. Fr Ker must be commended for a work which invaluably contributes to an historically true and fundamentally honest understanding of one of the greatest thinkers of our age. (Simon Caldwell, Catholic Herald )
Product Description
This full-length life of John Henry Newman is the first comprehensive biography of both the man and the thinker and writer. It draws extensively on material from Newman's letters and papers. Newman's character is revealed in its complexity and contrasts: the legendary sadness and sensitivity are placed in their proper perspective by being set against his no less striking qualities of exuberance, humour, and toughness. This book attempts to do justice to the fullness of Newman's achievement and genius: the Victorian 'prophet' or 'sage', who ranks among the major English prose writers; the dominating religious figure of the nineteenth century, who can now be recognised as the forerunner of the Second Vatican Council and the modern ecumenical movement; and finally, the universal Christian thinker, whose significance transcends his culture and time.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A well-researched book that brings out very much the human side of Newman. Most books view Newman from some political perspective, either to show how holy he was, or to show how faithful he was to the Anglican Church or to Catholic authorities, or to show how relevant he is to our days, etc. Such intent in writing distorts Newman, and generally seeks to mould him in order to fit some kind of cast. This book thankfully avoids this attitude.
Ker also made a good job by bringing out the real perspective of Newman with regard to his latter Catholic milieu. Again, today we read a lot about Newman as if his former Anglican discomfort was thoroughly substituted, in his Catholic days, with an existential and intellectual cosiness and contentment. From what Ker presents as evidence, it is clear that this was not so. Though he may have had a thorough intellectual assent to his new position within the Catholic Church, Newman was absolutely not at ease how things were run or even how he himself, and others like him, was treated, especially by a too-`Italianate' Rome.
While convinced that this is a master work on Newman, it does contain a few things that left me a bit disenchanted. For instance, Ker seems to assume that Catholic readers are able to understand fully the structure, practices and idiosyncrasies of the Anglican Church, and, vice versa, that Anglican readers are able to understand fully the structure, practices and idiosyncrasies of the Catholic Church. As a Catholic myself, I found myself ill at ease with the references made to the offices, places, hierarchy, and the like, related with the Anglican Church. I do not know the Anglican Church that much to be able to understand fully the significance, and especially the nuances, of ecclesial matters pertaining to the Anglican Church. On the contrary, I could understand completely those pertaining to the Catholic Church, of course, but I also could imagine how incomprehensible some of these would be to an Anglican who is unfamiliar with Catholic realities. I think Ker should have dedicated more space to explaining these matters, and should not have assumed that Anglicans and Catholics are familiar with each other's worlds, for probably they are not.
Also, though the book makes an admirable job in presenting Newman's intellectual positions, it seems to me that Ker is not sufficiently critical of Newman himself. He seems to accept everything Newman said on face value, and fails to `decompose' any of his positions. I think that the author would have done a service to Newman, especially in the part that deals with his 'Assent', if he had to submit him to some critical analysis.
Further, though Ker spends much time telling us what Anglicans on the whole thought of Newman, even when they were very critical to him, he does not made an equal effort to tell us with what, on the other hand, Catholics thought of Newman. In fact, in this sense a change of tact can be noticed in the book between the former `Anglican' part and the latter `Catholic' part.
On the whole, the book makes pleasant, and even exciting, reading. Personally, with the exception of Part 7, I found the parts dealing with Newman's intellectual `development' a bit too long-drawn, and perhaps even boring. A better balance of content may be warranted. However, having said this, I fully recommend this work to anyone who would like to get to know Newman as a person, and also as one who continually grappled with the vigour of his mind and the stirrings of his heart.
Ker also made a good job by bringing out the real perspective of Newman with regard to his latter Catholic milieu. Again, today we read a lot about Newman as if his former Anglican discomfort was thoroughly substituted, in his Catholic days, with an existential and intellectual cosiness and contentment. From what Ker presents as evidence, it is clear that this was not so. Though he may have had a thorough intellectual assent to his new position within the Catholic Church, Newman was absolutely not at ease how things were run or even how he himself, and others like him, was treated, especially by a too-`Italianate' Rome.
While convinced that this is a master work on Newman, it does contain a few things that left me a bit disenchanted. For instance, Ker seems to assume that Catholic readers are able to understand fully the structure, practices and idiosyncrasies of the Anglican Church, and, vice versa, that Anglican readers are able to understand fully the structure, practices and idiosyncrasies of the Catholic Church. As a Catholic myself, I found myself ill at ease with the references made to the offices, places, hierarchy, and the like, related with the Anglican Church. I do not know the Anglican Church that much to be able to understand fully the significance, and especially the nuances, of ecclesial matters pertaining to the Anglican Church. On the contrary, I could understand completely those pertaining to the Catholic Church, of course, but I also could imagine how incomprehensible some of these would be to an Anglican who is unfamiliar with Catholic realities. I think Ker should have dedicated more space to explaining these matters, and should not have assumed that Anglicans and Catholics are familiar with each other's worlds, for probably they are not.
Also, though the book makes an admirable job in presenting Newman's intellectual positions, it seems to me that Ker is not sufficiently critical of Newman himself. He seems to accept everything Newman said on face value, and fails to `decompose' any of his positions. I think that the author would have done a service to Newman, especially in the part that deals with his 'Assent', if he had to submit him to some critical analysis.
Further, though Ker spends much time telling us what Anglicans on the whole thought of Newman, even when they were very critical to him, he does not made an equal effort to tell us with what, on the other hand, Catholics thought of Newman. In fact, in this sense a change of tact can be noticed in the book between the former `Anglican' part and the latter `Catholic' part.
On the whole, the book makes pleasant, and even exciting, reading. Personally, with the exception of Part 7, I found the parts dealing with Newman's intellectual `development' a bit too long-drawn, and perhaps even boring. A better balance of content may be warranted. However, having said this, I fully recommend this work to anyone who would like to get to know Newman as a person, and also as one who continually grappled with the vigour of his mind and the stirrings of his heart.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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3 reviews
26 of 28 people found the following review helpful
THE DEFINITIVE BIOGRAPHY OF NEWMAN
21 Dec 2009
Format:Hardcover
While John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) wrote an autobiography (Apologia Pro Vita Sua by John Henry Cardinal Newman), the life and ideas of this famous 19th century intellectual's conversion from the Church of England to the Church of Rome is much more convincingly described in Ker's detailed biography.
About the 1834 publication of a volume of Newman's sermons, Ker asserts, "there is no doubt that they constitute one of the great classics of Christian spirituality. It is certainly almost as hard to conceive of the Oxford Movement without the 'Parochial and Plain Sermons' as without the 'Tracts for the Times.'"
Newman became a proto-Catholic, and too controversial to be allowed to continue to preach to Anglicans. "They exclude me, as far as may be, from the University Pulpit; and though I have never preached strong doctrine in it, they do so rightly as far as this, that they understand that my sermons are calculated to undermine things established. I cannot disguise from myself that they are."
When he was converted and then reordained as a Catholic, Newman's 'difficulty' (i.e., "I could not say that Anglican orders were invalid") "had been removed by the assurance that, although ordination would not be explicitly conditional, the 'condition' would be implied ... in the Church's intention."
Ker describes Newman's basic philosophical orientation as that "he thought all beliefs rested on 'first principles' which lay outside the range of logical argument and belonged to the inner life of the individual, where conscience not logic reigns supreme," and that "Newman certainly did not see himself as a theologian in any technical sense of the word. If he had an intellectual mission, apart from education, it lay in the field of apologetics." Concerning the writing of Newman's Apologia, Ker notes that "Never before had any book cost him so much as this. Not only had he never been in such 'a stress of brain' , but also he had never suffered such 'pain of heart' as well. He had been constantly in tears, and constantly crying out in distress."
Concerning Newman's distress over the First Vatican Council's declaration of Papal Infallibility, Newman wrote that the Council was "infusing into us ... little else than fear and dismay.... I look with anxiety at the prospect of having to defend decisions, which may not be difficult to my private judgment, but may be most difficult to maintain logically in the face of historical facts. What have we done to be treated, as the faithful never were treated before?" Nevertheless, Newman's objections notwithstanding, infallibility became a dogma, and Newman eventually was made a Cardinal.
Ker's book is of great interest to those interested in Newman, Catholicism, religious intellectual history, and religious biographies.
About the 1834 publication of a volume of Newman's sermons, Ker asserts, "there is no doubt that they constitute one of the great classics of Christian spirituality. It is certainly almost as hard to conceive of the Oxford Movement without the 'Parochial and Plain Sermons' as without the 'Tracts for the Times.'"
Newman became a proto-Catholic, and too controversial to be allowed to continue to preach to Anglicans. "They exclude me, as far as may be, from the University Pulpit; and though I have never preached strong doctrine in it, they do so rightly as far as this, that they understand that my sermons are calculated to undermine things established. I cannot disguise from myself that they are."
When he was converted and then reordained as a Catholic, Newman's 'difficulty' (i.e., "I could not say that Anglican orders were invalid") "had been removed by the assurance that, although ordination would not be explicitly conditional, the 'condition' would be implied ... in the Church's intention."
Ker describes Newman's basic philosophical orientation as that "he thought all beliefs rested on 'first principles' which lay outside the range of logical argument and belonged to the inner life of the individual, where conscience not logic reigns supreme," and that "Newman certainly did not see himself as a theologian in any technical sense of the word. If he had an intellectual mission, apart from education, it lay in the field of apologetics." Concerning the writing of Newman's Apologia, Ker notes that "Never before had any book cost him so much as this. Not only had he never been in such 'a stress of brain' , but also he had never suffered such 'pain of heart' as well. He had been constantly in tears, and constantly crying out in distress."
Concerning Newman's distress over the First Vatican Council's declaration of Papal Infallibility, Newman wrote that the Council was "infusing into us ... little else than fear and dismay.... I look with anxiety at the prospect of having to defend decisions, which may not be difficult to my private judgment, but may be most difficult to maintain logically in the face of historical facts. What have we done to be treated, as the faithful never were treated before?" Nevertheless, Newman's objections notwithstanding, infallibility became a dogma, and Newman eventually was made a Cardinal.
Ker's book is of great interest to those interested in Newman, Catholicism, religious intellectual history, and religious biographies.
24 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Great Content, Cheap Wrapping
15 Aug 2009
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This biography of Blessed Cardinal Newman is very satisfying with respect to its content. Unfortunately, the hard-bound edition of the book is of poor quality. The spine is paper thin and, together with the sideboards, threatens to become detached upon each opening. Thus, the ironic sensation of not wanting to open it. I hope that the more recently released paperback edition will be less awkward to handle. Ker's treatment of Newman's life is so focused upon primary sources and details that I sometimes found myself wishing that he would pull the lens back a bit, giving us some context and interpretation. But then I would just slip back into the stream of Newman's life. On the whole, the unobtrusiveness of this biographer is a boon to the reader.
Came without dust jacket
29 May 2012
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I received my book without the dust cover. I've been a costumer since 1998, never happened before.
Book is great, by the way, very well written, comprehensive
Book is great, by the way, very well written, comprehensive
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