Rating: 
Summary: Occassionally Thought Provoking
Review: The excessive sentence fragments, the unending infinitives, and the haphazard structure make this work at times kind of annoying. (His ego-centric contemptible "editor" W. H. Auden doesn't help matters in this respect. One often wonders who's to blame. There desperately needs to be an Auden-less edition. Hence the three stars.) But Hammarskjold isn't read today because he is a gifted writer. Markings is a fascinating book because of who wrote it. The words have life because of the identity of the author. This is what fascinates us: to get inside the head of a brilliant Swedish politician who to the rest of the world is just a successful public figure but to the reader reveals a real human being with angst, fear, doubt, loneliness, piety, faith, and struggles. We get to peek under the curtain, so to speak, and see an inner life that with any luck succeeds in reminding us of our humanity. This aspect of the work deserves five stars for sure. Breath on oh living soul and be for us a marking along a way that takes us to where you ultimately found your rest.
Rating: 
Summary: Hammarskjold possessed a spiritual depth that was profound
Review: The writings in this book are sincere and authentic reflections on the spiritual life of this honest man. The book left me with the desire to be better, live better and take a harder look at my spiritual condition. Beautifully written by a classic personality.
Rating:
Summary: The profound thoughts of a profound man
Review: Upon his tragic death in September 1961, Hammarskjöld left his diary in the care of a friend, saying only that if the friend thought there was material therein worth publishing, then he was entitled to do so. In the starkest of terms, this book represents a man's search for meaning, faith, virtue, and the Way. He does not engage in fatuous comfort, nor is any illusion created that life is intended to be simple. He does not indulge in the (far too common, to my mind) practice of lamenting his own humanity. Instead, in both the tradition of the Stoicists and Kierkegaard, he embraces it, and looks for the faith and the courage to utilise his capacities to their fullest extent. This is also a work of universal relevance: there is truly much in here worth sharing. This is the one book that stays by my bed. The faith, simplicity, care and stoicism are deeply touching. This I find to be a wonderful book...largely for helping us to reconcile the world as it is, with the world as it needs to be, for reminding us to take joy in our burdens, and not to lament our transitory nature. As near as I have ever found, Hammarskjöld's thoughts encapsulate what I believe it is to be human.
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