Madeleine L’Engle Appreciation

I read A Wrinkle in Time (Time Quintet) when I was a kid, and a lifelong obsession was born. I have read every one of her books that I can get my hands on. This woman is PROLIFIC.

She has multiple series going on at the same time: the series of the Murry family (immortalized in Wrinkle in Time), the series of the Austin family (there are 6 or 7 of these, and A Ring of Endless Light is a favorite), a couple of books starring a kind of boring chick named Camilla (who intersects with both the Murrys and the Austins), and many more. L’Engle enjoys creating characters for one series, and then have them show up, randomly, in the middle of another series. Like Zachary – one of the characters introduced in the Austin family series – a troubled self-destructive rich kid – who then takes a MAJOR role in A House Like a Lotus – one of the Murry family stories (starring Polly, daughter of Meg Murry). Anyway, you could, if you were obsessed enough, do geneological trees of all of this.

But Madeleine L’Engle doesn’t just write fiction. She also has published 4 books entitled “Crosswicks Journals” (named after her farmhouse in Connecticut). I adore each and every one of these books, for very different reasons. The titles and themes are: A Circle of Quiet – her ruminations on family life, on art, on writing, on nature, on religion. The Summer of the Great-Grandmother (Crosswicks Journal, Book 2) – a wrenching book, about Madeleine’s mother, suffering from Alzheimer’s, and coming to live at Crosswicks for the summer, her last summer on earth. An amazing read, and I highly recommend it, to anyone who has ever experienced the grief of watching someone you love succumb to Alzheimer’s. A redemptive book. It is not just about the sadness of that summer, but it is L’Engle’s tribute to the extraordinary woman her mother once was. The Irrational Season (The Crosswicks Journal, Book 3) -this book has a theological theme, if I could put it that way. She talks about her life, her faith. Madeleine L’Engle is a very religious woman (although she would probably balk at that term) … she doesn’t like labels. Her faith is of the questioning kind, the child-like kind … and she is unafraid to get mad at God, to ask “WHY”, all that stuff. She doesn’t believe in blind faith. She can’t stand narrow-minded religious bigots, and is ruthless about them. Ruthless. And the last of the Crosswicks Journals – is an absolutely beautiful book called Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage (The Crosswicks Journal, Book 4). It is the story of her long marriage to her husband. If you’re a Madeleine L’Engle fan, I literally cannot recommend Two-Part Invention highly enough. It has an honored place on my bookshelf. I’ve read it many times, and every time I read it I grow, I learn more, I see different things. I should do a whole Two-Part Invention excerpt-day. It’s a wonderful book.

So there’s THAT section of L’Engle’s creativity.

But then there’s even more. She has a bunch of books out (mostly published in the last 10 years or so) about her views on God, and religion and faith – in conjunction with different aspects of her life. She’s got one book on the value of storytelling. She’s got one book on art. She’s got one book on <idols and icons. I like that one a lot. She wrote a small book on the incarnation. Because it’s Madeleine L’Engle, you get a very specific voice for all of these things. It’s not pompous, or pious … it’s questioning, it’s full of wonder. She writes in a very personable way, full of anecdotes, full of humor, and you always get the sense of a questioning inquiring open intellect. I love her style.

And lastly, she has written what has come to be known as “the Genesis trilogy”. There are those who read the Bible literally, that’s fine for them (as long as they don’t try to force me to live their way, we’ll be good). It’s not fine for me. There are those who think that trying to imagine what it was REALLY like back then is heresy, blasphemy, whatever. The book is the Word of God. Fine. But if religion is going to be THAT, then you can count me out. Madeleine L’Engle approaches the Genesis stories as just that: stories. Now, she is not without faith. On the contrary!! But since she is a writer, she believes in the power of storytelling, that storytelling is one of the highest forms of human communication – existent in human societies since we grouped up into societies, basically. People have gathered around the campfires time immemorial to tell stories to one another. Stories to enlighten, to frighten, to warn off, to help others, to tell the younger generation about the struggles of the older … whatever. Madeleine L’Engle goes at the stories of Genesis in THAT context, which I find exhilarating. It is a LIVING faith. Not a dead scared-to-grow-or-question faith. That’s how I’ve always approached the Bible, and my relationship to God, etc. If it’s not ALIVE, then … it just doesn’t have any meaning for me.

And so: she asks: What can the story of Joseph tell us? What does it MEAN? What’s going on between the lines? How can we grow, when looking at this story?

If we don’t think of the Bible as a static text (to be accepted at face-value and barely DISCUSSED for fear of tripping over heresies) then … what can we learn? What was going on with Joseph? What is the STORY there?

That’s how I read the Bible, anyway.

I love the Genesis books. Her book on Joseph (Sold into Egypt (Genesis Trilogy)) got me through a very tough time in my life. I’ve read it countless times since. It always has something to tell me, to show me.

Madeleine L’Engle. One of my own personal idols, on so many levels: her writing itself, but also how she has chosen to live her life. Her WAY of being a writer. If I could be even a tiny bit like her, in my own creative process, I would be grateful. I dread her death. I dread the day when there will be “no more” Madeleine L’Engle books coming out. She is still writing, although she must be almost 90 years old by now. Most of her books now are very small, and theological in nature. Which I suppose makes sense. No more novels. I think her last novel was Troubling a Star: The Austin Family Chronicles, Book 5, another one in the long Austin series. This one took place in Antarctica – which L’Engle traveled to, as a spry woman of … 80? She’s incredible.

Whatever she went through, whatever she experienced, whatever she saw – went into her books. She was enraptured by Portugal, and so she set an entire book there (The Arm of the Starfish). She was totally fascinated by quantum mechanics, and many of her books deal with these concepts. After retreating to the country to raise her family, L’Engle and her husband moved back to New York City, so he could pick up his once-flourishing acting career. L’Engle put that jarring experience (country mouse to city mouse) into one of her books (Dragons in the Waters). She went to Antarctica, and needed to find a way to send the Austin family down there, so that she could talk about what she saw, what she sensed.

Her entire LIFE is use-ful. If you get my meaning. Nothing is not USED.

She is a tireless creator, she never stops. What I find especially admirable is that Madeleine L’Engle went for 10 years without publishing ONE THING. Not a short story, not a poem, NOTHING. This was in the early 60s to early 70s. She was having babies, running a general store with her husband in their small Connecticut town, and trying to write. The two of them had been successful actors, that’s how they met, and after they married, and started considering having kids … they decided to move out of the city, and give “civilian” life a go. They did so for 10 years. This was the 10 years when L’Engle was unable to get published. It was a dark time for her – and for her husband – who missed his acting career more than he let on at first. When she finally submitted Wrinkle in Time to different publishing houses, no one wanted to touch it. They thought it wasn’t a children’s book – they didn’t think kids would “get” it. It was too scary, too emotional, blah blah blah. Publisher after publisher after publisher rejected it. L’Engle considered throwing in the towel completely. Finally, one brave publisher ignored the fact that Wrinkle in Time couldn’t be easily classified or pegged and the book was published. All hell (and heaven) proceeded to break loose. The book became a massive hit. It is still a massive hit today. She won every literary award on the planet. Her entire life changed.

And she has been churning out interesting challenging beloved books ever since.

She kept going when things got tough, she kept writing in the midst of rejection … it’s not that she didn’t despair. SHE DID. But she kept writing. She kept writing.