Madeleine L'Engle (1918 – 2007)

[cleolinda]

Madeleine L'Engle dies at the age of 88. I happened to check Fandom Lounge, saw this, and my mouth fell open for some reason. I loved L'Engle, although I haven't gotten through half as many books as I'd like. I even saw her speak when I was in seventh or eighth grade (which must have been in the neighborhood of 1992-1993); I was a library aide at school, and the librarians took all of us to see her when she was in town. I want to say she spoke in a church, because I seem to remember sitting with the other aides in a balcony. I was surprised by how she looked--like a very cheerful energetic grandmother, a grandmother who might go climb a mountain when she was finished with her speaking engagement. In fact, I think she talked about penguins and the Antarctic, and I notice that some ten years after that, Penguins and Golden Calves: Icons and Idols in Antarctica and other Spiritual Places was published.

For some reason, A Swiftly Tilting Planet was my favorite book in the Time Quartet as a kid--yes, over A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door, although I loved the covers of all my copies--but A Ring of Endless Light was probably my favorite overall. I remember reading it one bright summer, a summer that "Red Red Wine" was on the radio all the time (although really, that could be many different summers), and I always associate the two. If I'm reading the book, I hear the song; if I hear the song, I think of the book, and that light, white afternoon I finished it in my little upstairs room with the roof shaped like a barn's.


Just something to leave you with, from that news link:

"In my dreams, I never have an age," she said. "I never write for any age group in mind. When people do, they tend to be tolerant and condescending and they don't write as well as they can write. When you underestimate your audience, you're cutting yourself off from your best work."

It's probably not the most profound thing a very profound writer ever said, but I believe it.

Comments

[evilbearhunter.livejournal.com]

That is so sad. Also, A Swiftly Tilting Planet is my favorite too! Most people I know don't even like it. I need to reread those books.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I know! I hear that all the time! I don't even quite know why I love it so much.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

It's either my second favorite or tied for first. I think for me, I liked how she knitted all the times and all the people together in so many different ways, and how this or that action in the past affects the future so dramatically. Also, the Madoc/Maddox detective-novel bit also rocked. I think this book was L'Engle's Prisoner of Azkaban, if that makes any sense.

[evilbearhunter.livejournal.com]

I think my deep love of the Madoc/Maddox plot twist, which I totally did not seem coming even a little bit, comes from my love of language and my extreme gullibility. Huh, now I'm thinking on a theory where you could link each book in the series to a branch of science -- Wrinkle is obviously Physics, Wind is molecular biology, Planet is evolution, and, shit, I have no idea what Waters is. Anyone?

[sea-of-tethys.livejournal.com]

Theology?

What do you mean by plot twist? I'm wondering if I missed something *facepalm*

[evilbearhunter.livejournal.com]

I don't think you did, just how SPOILER I don't know how to do Spoiler text in LJ SORRY! SPOILER FOR SWIFTLY TILTING PLANET SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER Mad Dog Branzillo's name comes from all these variations on Maddox, Madoc, Bran, Zillah, Zilla, etc over the course of the book and I TOTALLY didn't get that until the end. I guess it's not really a plot twist, just a neat thing.

[jubilantia.livejournal.com]

I love all the Time Quartet books in different ways, but I remember having a hard time finishing A Swiftly Tilting Planet the first time I read it. It's grown on me, though. I reread those books, and An Acceptable Time, at least once every year and a half or so.

[pride4u2.livejournal.com]

A Swiftly Tilting Planet was my favorite, too.

[silversyren.livejournal.com]

Madeleine L'Engle died?! noooo! A Ring of Endless Light made me cry everytime. :(

[dives.livejournal.com]

Aw, dammit. 2007 really sucks in that tons of really cool people have passed away during it.

[undying-rose17.livejournal.com]

Oh god. I seriously feel like I'm going to cry right now. I usually am not this moved by the deaths of authors, directors, actors and so on, but A Wrinkle in Time has been my favorite book since I was seven years old...I feel like part of me just blew away.

Really, what set her apart from most authors was that she sort of transcended genres. It was sci-fi, yes, and fantasy and everything in between, and just so insightful, more than what you'd expect to find in books that are usually shelved among fluffy teen fiction. She really seemed to get it.

[iczer6.livejournal.com]

She'll be missed.

[elsajeni.livejournal.com]

Many Waters was my favorite book of hers. I think the last time I reread it was perhaps two years ago. I should see if I can find my old copy.

[sea-of-tethys.livejournal.com]

I loved that one too. Very odd but very good.

[golden-d.livejournal.com]

No!

:(

This makes me very, very sad.

[theatre-angel.livejournal.com]

A Wrinkle in Time was the first Grown-Up Book I ever read, though I could never make it through any of the others because I read them when I was too young to understand what they were really about. I needed an excuse to go back to that series, it was brilliant from the little that I remember. Sigh, Madeleine L'Engle.

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

I just read this news on another journal. This is what I wrote in response --

I'm sitting here with tears running down my face. Is it silly to love someone you've never met, who's never met you? Because I loved -- love -- Madeleine L'Engle.

I think I was nine when I first read A Wrinkle in Time (I am seventeen now), and I remember being incredibly moved by it in a way that I had never been moved by a book before. It felt important. It felt real. It had a weight that no other book I had previously read had carried. I have worn my copy nearly to pieces, reading it and re-reading it in the years since. Later I read some of her other books for children (the rest of the Time Quartet, some of the Austin books), and loved them, because they were beautiful, because they had that weight, and that joy, and because she is one of the only writers I have encountered who can write about God in the frame of a novel organically and beautifully and eloquently, without it feeling like a bit of lace frill sewn on at the end.

There are some writers, you know, whom you love to read, and maybe you live in their books sometimes, and maybe they mean something -- but then there are other writers whose writings are bits of you -- they're writers of your heart and they get into your soul and take roost there gently and irrevocably, and something about them is like being home, except it's a home you didn't know was home and it turns out it's more widely and fully home than the house you're living in. For me, she was one of those.

This spring, I happened upon a book of hers at the Goodwill. I knew vaguely that she'd written some non-fiction, but I'd never read any of it. The book was Two-Part Invention, the story of her marriage to Hugh Franklin. I bought it and took it home and read it, and I have never been quite the same since. I was so deeply -- oh, moved isn't even the word at all. I was very very quiet for a long time, and then I went out and took a walk. I wrote on my LiveJournal,

"The thoughts, the ideas, the stories and pains and joys and how L'Engle writes about them and what she writes about them -- it's the sort of book that one has to recover from afterwards; you come out of it slowly, blinking at the brightness of the light, and you are very, very quiet for a few minutes afterwards, because you don't want to leave it, and because you have so much to ponder and to understand. I sat very still, wanting to know that kind of love, and that kind of trust, and faith, and strength, and wanting to be able to make others feel them as if the sorrows and joys belonged to them -- if I can't do that, then I can't be a writer. I took a walk. It's Spring, as you have no doubt heard, and I love early evening, all pale and sharp-smelling and quiet and still, so I walked around the neighbourhood in the chilly March air and thought, not just about what I'd read, but everything, everything that there was to think of."

Since then, Madeleine L'Engle has been real to me (and she has been making God real and beautiful to me through her books). I discovered her novels for adults, and have been attempting to make my way through her entire bibliography. Aside from her "Crosswicks Journals", the four-part autobiographical sort-of series which concluded with Two-Part Invention, I've especially loved The Other Side of the Sun and Certain Women so far.

I only wish I could have met her on this earth. See you in heaven, Madeleine.



(I have always loved A Swiftly Tilting Planet in particular, too -- all those intertwining stories, and the Welsh. But each of her books that I have read has felt incredibly personal to me, in some odd way; it's difficult to choose favourites because they all mean something and they all managed to get into some corner of my consciousness and being and alter it.)

[elbales]

This is absolutely beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing it here.

[padawansguide.livejournal.com]

That was lovely. I feel the same way about her books - they cast a certain spell on one...

:(

[cleojones.livejournal.com]

This seems to be the year of great authors' passing.

[caligogreywings.livejournal.com]

I loved all those books! Swiftly Tilting Planet, def among the faves. I also loved Ring of Endless Light. :3 Sounds like we have good tastes.

I'm sad to hear about her passing, but I hope she can filter some of her genius down to those of us back on Earth.

[sea-of-tethys.livejournal.com]

Wah :(

A Swiftly Tilting Planet was my favourite in that series too.

[elbales]

I love A Ring of Endless Light. I love all of the Vicky books, but that one was my favorite by far.

It's a pity she's gone.

[dreamingreader.livejournal.com]

NOOOOO! This is really, really sad. I loved the Time books! I have to say, though, Many Waters is my favorite.

[rclementmoore.livejournal.com]

I was so crushed to hear about this. I re-read the hole Time Quartet, plus An Acceptable Time, last summer for the first time in a while, and it was interesting to see how much she had influenced me, not just as a writer but my own personal theology.

She was a truly amazing, talented woman, and I loved that she saw her work as a reflection--an outgrowth, really--of her faith. Proof that you can write spiritually without writing dogmatically.

[jennnk.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize she was that old. For some reason, I think of her as perpetually 50-ish. And I don't remember anything about any of the books, except An Acceptable Time because that's the one I owned and loved to dog-eared pieces after buying it for 25¢ at the library used book sale. I'm going to have to get the others from the library and refresh my memory, since it's been about 18 years since I read the rest (1st/2nd grade).

[padawansguide.livejournal.com]

Oh, I loved An Acceptable Time! I had a red parka in college like Polly's, that I used to wear all the time! ;-)

[elbales]

Huh. According to her website, An Acceptable Time is supposed to be considered part of the Time series, which is actually a quintet.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I had actually never heard of the books referred to quartets or quintets or anything until I looked it up on Wikipedia today, and the way it was written seemed to indicate that it was more commonly called the Time Quartet (which it may not be; this is Wikipedia we're talking about), so that's why I went with that. I honestly have no idea myself--I think of the books in terms of families.

[elbales]

In this case it looks like Wikipedia had the right idea going; they just didn't get quite the right number. But yeah, I'd never heard of it before today, either.

One of her books had an interesting sort of diagram of the families and their connections through her fiction books (Canon Tallis, Adam, and Zachary).

[jubilantia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think that was in the Yearling editions of them or something. I always loved how the characters from different books interacted with each other, but the Time ones were always my favorite- I guess they seemed more real, or less dumbed down, than some of the Austen ones- gosh, I don't even think I read all the Austen ones, I just remember thinking "Meet the Austens" was a silly title compared with the rest of them.

[kookaburra1701.livejournal.com]

*cries*
I love "Swiftly Tilting Planet" as well- I think because it shows that you have to keep on fighting for something, even when it seems like it won't matter because the world is going to end.

[shellseeker.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this. I cannot tell you how upset I am by this news. She is/was my favorite author. I met her when I was about 8 or 9 and I took my well-loved, tattered copies of A Wrinkle in Time, The Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet for her to sign. I was embarrassed because they weren't nice and new like everyone else's, but she loved it.

As much as I loved those three books my favorites were A Ring of Endless Light and The Arm of the Starfish.

She will be missed.

[http://users.livejournal.com/belladonna_/]

If you're like me, you liked A Swiftly Tilting Planet because you <3 Charles Wallace. :)

Also, seriously, a unicorn named Gaudior! A trip into the past involving squabbling Welsh princes (including one who supposedly sailed into Mobile Bay in the 12th century)! More Charles Wallace! It's made of win.

[hulamoth.livejournal.com]

I never finished any of her books but the quote makes me love her.

[eruvadhril.livejournal.com]

:(

[trash-addict.livejournal.com]

Aw, that's really sad. For some reason a couple of years ago I wrote 'A Wrinkle In Time' on my Books To Read list - it had been referred to in another book, I think. Last year I found it in a second-hand shop and bought it on a whim, and last summer I finally got around to reading it. Whilst I think it lost something in the fact that I wasn't reading it as a kid and therefore found it a bit...preachy?, I still enjoyed it and could see the influence it must have had on other writers.

[londonsparrow.livejournal.com]

Even though I adore the Murray family so much more than the Austins, I have to confess that along with the Time Quartet my favorite L'Engle book is Troubling A Star, where Vicky goes to Antarctica and the Falkland Islands and there's bad South Americans and a harpist and Mozart's The Magic Flute. I think I'll be re-reading my L'Engle collection this whole weekend.
(I have to say I was a bit amused that the reporting post over at Jezebel (http://jezebel.com/) eventually turned into a discussion of how hot we all found Sandy and Dennys in reading Many Waters as pre-teens.)

[padawansguide.livejournal.com]

I love her books - I wrote her a letter when I was in college and she wrote me back. I just dug her letter out and reread it. She was an amazing writer and she will be missed.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lady_narcissa_/]

Thanks for this. I don't know anyone else who cares about this and it's nice to have a post with so many people who obviously love her books as much as I do.

Her books are timeless. I reread "A Swiftly Tilting Planet" the days after September 11th and even though it had been written in the 1970s she could have been writing about 2001.

"A Ring of Endless Light" is my absolute favorite. But I always loved Vicky and Adam best.

I was lucky enough to meet her twice. We talked about Vicky. "A House Like a Lotus" was originally supposed to be about Vicky, not Polly. But her husband convinced her it had to be Polly's story.

[scarletsherlock.livejournal.com]

I believe it too. I know she was 88 and had a VERY full life but I can't help being a little devastated. I WAS Meg Murry. I still am, to a certain extent. I love this woman. :(

[jubilantia.livejournal.com]

Wow. This makes me feel a little melancholy. I read a lot, and I'm relatively not picky, so I don't really have a favorite author, but Madeleine L' Engle is definitely one the writers I admire the most. I use the present tense, because I know she will live on through her writing and the many people that love it. I've always thought in the back of my mind that I would love to write to her, or meet her somehow, but I never did. Her writing was just so- pure, and heartfelt, and it includes all of the things I want to be present in my writing. Also, there didn't seem to be much barrier between what she did with her life and wrote in her books, which I think is the essence of authorship- the undiluted communication of one's soul and beliefs. She also seems incredibly well-rounded in her interests, doing intellectual and wonderfully romantic, old-fashioned things like you see her characters do in the books. For example, listening to Holtz's The Planets, or making cocoa in a saucepan on the stove, or living in a glorious old farmhouse in the quaint, yet slightly pretentious and untouchable atmosphere of New England. Obviously, the Time Quartet and an Acceptable Time are my favorites of hers, although I did love a Ring of Endless Light and the one with Vicki and the North... Troubling a Star, that's it. I've read a couple of her "grown-up" books, but I need to read more.

Anyhoo- if you read this, thanks for caring about my mindless, unedited outpouring of feelings.

[silent-sybil.livejournal.com]

I feel like crying. :( Goddammit.

[derangeddarling.livejournal.com]

I haven't read anything by her. I didn't even know who she was before now. I do have a copy of A Wrinkle in Time that I've been meaning to read, though. I bought it on one of my I'm-going-to-read-all-the-classics crusades but haven't actually gotten around to it yet (as with most of my classics, sadly.)

I hope you won't find it disrespectful for me to say this in this entry, but on a completely unrelated note: I went and saw Stardust last night and it was brillant. Absolute pure movie genius. I haven't read the book (yet! I got a copy! Though I don't think it has any illustrations. Wasn't there something about it's supposed to have illustrations?) but I loved the movie 100%. I think this might now be tied with The Holiday for The Only Movie That Makes EVERYTHING Better.

[dreamingenigma.livejournal.com]

YESSSSSSs a ring of endless light. that's the book i will always cherish her for. RIP <3