Madeleine L'Engle

[rm]

Publisher's Weekly reports Madeleine L'Engle has died.

A Wrinkle in Time was one of those books that snuck onto the required Hewitt summer reading book list that somehow wasn't about a brave and well-mannered girl facing the elements with the help of wolves. Okay, the reading lists weren't that bad, but they tended to make my brain burn in the not good way.

At any rate, I read that book young, and my recollections of it and my ability to place it in the context of my life are somewhat vague.

But I do remember all the creepy children bouncing the balls in exactly the same way and the boy who couldn't do it right who was hollered at and had to be hidden inside. I may not be remembering it right, but that's what's stuck with me nonetheless. Hide the awkward! It was like this incredible confirmation to me of yes, this is what the world was, and yes, I was what people hated in it. The complexity of children is rooted in the simple and how you play dodgeball matters.

At that time, I had a friend from summer camp named Meg. And when I met her, with blond pigtails braids and her gigantic eyes (thanks to trifocals) that moved back and forth all the time (she was born with cataracts and her eyes had learnt to constantly try to look around them) like a shark, I immediately thought this is Meg from that book just as I always pictured her! How could that be?

It turned out my father worked with her father and we had met before, but it took us years to figure this out and a bit of a Heavenly Creatures horror show of a friendship.

Just a few weeks ago, stevefava and I got explaining a tesseract to someone.

Books prevail and pervade.

Comments

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i explain tesseracts to people every time i drive across wisconsin. wisconsin needs a tesseract.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I also vividly remember reading her books, she will be missed.

[magnetgirl.livejournal.com]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Fuck, goddamn and shit. I did not need this right now.

[phaenix-ash.livejournal.com]

oh god. i'm still trying to get past the fact that lloyd alexander died. i'm so sad :(

[taarnagh.livejournal.com]

Wow, that really sucks.

The same part of the book sticks out vividly in my mind. I went back and reread it one day when I was 23 or so, because I couldn't quite remember it and I felt it had been a huge moment in my life. It turns out reading it again made me realize it was a larger base for my explanation of the world around me than I remembered.

Since then, I reveled in introducing London to it and in turn watching her turn others on to the wonders of that world.

[00goddess.livejournal.com]

"A Wrinkle in Time" was a really powerful book for me. I first read it when I was 6 or 7 and I strongly identified with Meg (glasses-wearing, book-reading misfit with an odd family), and also, I really really liked the book. I liked the whole series, in fact, although they got less good as L'Engle became more Christian.

The Camazotz imagery has always stuck with me. I figured out recently that that may be why I am so creeped out by all the new construction in my area, rows and rows of identical houses. Yech.

[newsbean.livejournal.com]

The best, like hers, teach us how to love people.