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The Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist
Introduction By Dorothy Day.
328 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1954
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July 5, 2015
A very rambling folksy tale of Hennacy's journeys back and forth across the country as a manual laborer trying to live up to the ideals of the Sermon on the Mount - beginning with his jailhouse conversion where he learned to love his enemy and ending in his Catholic conversion where he attempted to find a spiritual home (which ultimately wouldn't last). Hennacy started along the path of anarchy first through the usual "revolutionary" channels, mostly communistic, but after his philosophical conversion, he spent much of his life writing for and associating with those in the Catholic Worker movement, particularly Dorothy Day, espousing the idea of non-violence and recognizing the evils of the modern state.
The book itself is scatter-shot and seems to have been written as is, things as he remembered them or interested him at the moment. It could benefit from a severe editing, perhaps 30% of the book randomly describes the processes of farming or the life-cycle of various fruits and vegetables and another 30% relates personal tales of out-witting or out-clevering his detractors. All of his letters to the IRS are contained also, wherein each year he meticulously accounted for all of his cash-only income and calculated the precise amount of taxes that he was NOT going to pay the government and why. His courage to live life as he believed - his idea of the "one man revolution" - is often lost in all the insular folkiness.
An interesting story, nonetheless, of an interesting man.
The book itself is scatter-shot and seems to have been written as is, things as he remembered them or interested him at the moment. It could benefit from a severe editing, perhaps 30% of the book randomly describes the processes of farming or the life-cycle of various fruits and vegetables and another 30% relates personal tales of out-witting or out-clevering his detractors. All of his letters to the IRS are contained also, wherein each year he meticulously accounted for all of his cash-only income and calculated the precise amount of taxes that he was NOT going to pay the government and why. His courage to live life as he believed - his idea of the "one man revolution" - is often lost in all the insular folkiness.
An interesting story, nonetheless, of an interesting man.
Displaying 1 of 1 review