Author Luke Penkett
Publisher DLT £14.99
Format pbk
ISBN 9780232533859
How Merton, Van Gogh, Vanier and Rembrandt influenced Henri Nouwen
There may well be a place for a book about the intellectual and artistic influences on Henri Nouwen’s theology of compassion, but alas, this is not it. Despite Rowan Williams’s generous introduction, the material is so badly organized that by the end of the first chapter I was beginning to wonder if the publishers had sent the wrong draft to the printers by mistake. There are only four chapters, on Thomas Merton, van Gogh, Jean Vanier and Rembrandt’s painting The Return of the Prodigal Son, but in each one Penkett repeats the same biographical information about Nouwen. The first two chapters both carry an identical six line quotation from Nouwen to make the same point. There are 50 pages of painstaking endnotes and a very full bibliography, from which it can be seen that a great deal already exists by and about Nouwen. This book unfortunately adds nothing new.
KIRSTY ANDERSON
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