The Interior Castle

If you want a more faithful translation, I suggest you do not look at this particular book.


Horrible, horrible translation!   February 4, 2005
Kevin Davis (Charlotte, NC United States)
72 out of 88 found this review helpful

It would be well enough for the enquiring consumer to use Amazon's "Search Inside" feature and compare this translation by Mirabai Starr with the other Interior Castle translation by E. Allison Peers. Based on the prose alone, the Peers translation is far superior (and includes translation footnotes to explain where a word is difficult to translate). But the Starr translation fails much more miserably on account that an obvious liberal/"progressive" agenda is involved, wherein words like "sin" and "evil" are changed to be more suitable to contemporary sensibilities. Even "Our Lord" is changed into "Beloved." In other words, the translation wants to change this great Catholic mystical work into something more along the lines of New Age or Neopaganism. This is completely unacceptable and a misrepresentation of St. Teresa. Another reviewer who accidently posted his comments on the Peers translation page had this to say about Starr's translation (I disagree, however, that her translation is "lovely"...it's dumbed-down prose, in my opinion):

Mirabai Starr, the translator of this work, describes herself as a "Hindu/Buddhist/Jew translating the Catholic saints". Her translation is lovely, but quite different from the original, as she substitutes St. Theresa's own words with some that are perhaps more "universal". Below are Ms. Starr's own words:
"I opted to minimize references to the inherent wickedness of human beings and replace such terms as "sin" and "evil" with "missing the mark," "imperfection," "unconsciousness," "limitations," and "negativity." "Mortal sin" is "grave error." I call "hell" "the underworld" and the "devil" the "spirit of evil". When I name the "three divine Persons" in the seventh dwelling is what Teresa refers to as the "Holy Trinity."

As I said, the translation is quite lovely, but when St. Teresa said "sin" she did not mean "limitation" or "negativity". She meant sin. This translation is useless to me.


A Sincere Disappointment   February 6, 2005
Arthem (Knoxville, TN USA)
43 out of 53 found this review helpful

I should have read the back cover more closely before buying Mirabai Starr's translation of the Interior Castle. To her credit, she admits to her butchery of the text. As cited by other reviewers, she provides a list of the words that she changed; Lord to Beloved, devil to "spirit of evil," sin with "missing the mark," etc.

However, all her semantics serve to do is to force the reverse translation by the reader, and it grew quickly tiresome to mentally exchange "Lord" for every instance of "Beloved." Not to mention the sneaking suspicion that Ms. Starr had monkeyed with the text to a greater extent than she admits. But, again, you have to admire Ms Starr's honesty in her statement that "[Teresa] would have approved of my boldness, if not the results." This amounts to an admission by Ms Starr that her modifications substantially change the meaning of Teresa's text.

Despite all the linguistic hijinks, Starr's translation of the Interior Castle is not "Free of Dogma" as is its claim. The concept of the soul is dogma. The redemptive suffering of Christ is dogma. Teresa's patterns of prayer and life are rooted in dogma. To attempt to pen a "dogma-free Interior Castle" is like attempting to write a "math-free Calculus".

What the attempt to "free Teresa from the cage of Christianity" reveals is a complete denial of Teresa's life and devotion. Whatever pressures Teresa may have felt at the hands of the inquisitors and the Church heirarchy, Teresa was voluntarily a Carmelite and she deeply believed in all sorts of inconvenient things. Teresa cannot be separated from Christianity - nor can she be separated from Catholicism.

In the end, far from being dogma-free and modernized, Starr's interpretation of Teresa's Interior Castle is simply castrated, lobotomized, sterile, and confused.


a poetic, mystical gift   September 16, 2004
tim_farrington (Virginia Beach, VA United States)
16 out of 28 found this review helpful

Mirabai Starr is quietly revolutionizing our relationship with the great Carmelite mystics. Like her magnificent rendering of John of the Cross's "Dark Night of the Soul," her gorgeous translation of Teresa's "Interior Castle" is an instant classic. Starr has the poet's ear and the meditative depth to do perfect justice to Teresa's uniquely passionate religious vision, as well as the feminist savvy to put in perspective how dangerously radical St. Teresa's writing actually was in the political context of the Spanish Inquisition and the tumult of the Counter-Reformation, how she essentially risked her life to speak the truth of her relationship with God. Begin this beautiful work for the profoundity of Starr's revelatory introduction; and treasure it for the pitch-perfect spirituality of her rendering of Teresa's priceless guide to the holy kingdom of inwardness.


Great Update of a Classic   March 10, 2006
Richard M. Trump (Ocean Park, WA USA)
15 out of 24 found this review helpful

Mirabai Starr has done a wonderful, poetic interpretation of this classic Catholic text. By modifying some of the language, she has made the valuable insights of this book far more accessable to non-Catholics and non-Christians alike as well as to a modern progressive audience. I guess if you are a stickler for tradition and find traditional definitions of "sin" and "evil" to be of value to you, then you might want to stick to another translation, but for me this is just fine. Just remember, that in the Aramaic language that Jesus taught in, "sin" is an archery term meaning "miss the mark". So this text may be more accurate than some would believe.