Thanks to David Crumm for the heads-up that most PBS stations will this weekend show Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton.  Today, Crumm interviews the filmmaker, Morgan Atkinson at Read the Spirit.  Money Q&A:

DAVID: People talk about The Seven Storey Mountain as a runaway
bestseller, but I don’t think people will get a good impression of its
importance if they think about it as just a huge media success story.
Merton’s success wasn’t like an actor becoming a movie star or a singer
becoming a huge hit. Merton was important because of the way he touched
spiritual nerves in millions of people.
   
I think a better comparison is with someone like Jack Kerouac,
who also became a guru to a whole generation. After Kerouac’s books
like On the Road in the 1950s, countless people wanted to head out on
the road, as well. That’s the kind of impact Merton had, I think. Is
that a fair way to put it?
  
MORGAN: That’s dead on. I would agree
with that. Suddenly there were people making these pilgrimages to
Gethsemani and suddenly there were all these young men who wanted to
become Trappists and there was this explosion of the population at
Gethsemani. Merton’s book had a significant part to play in all of
this. Merton became like a Jack Kerouac prototype. Suddenly, people
were showing up at the monastery saying: I want to be like Thomas
Merton.