Reflections on Madeleine L’Engle

So Madeleine L’Engle, the writer of children’s books, died last week. All I’ve been thinking about is how much I liked reading A Wrinkle in Time, how I thought the sequel – A Wind in the Door – wasn’t nearly as good, and how I could tell you virtually nothing about the plot of either. That’s the toll of too many years on my memory. All I know is that I’ll have an excuse to read all my favorite childhood books again when I have kids: either out loud to them, or as a way to accompany them on their trips of imagination.

My other memory of A Wrinkle in Time is how my mother did not approve of it. She was the type of mother that read every book I was assigned for school and complained to the teacher if it contained above a certain number of curse words or more than a hint of sexual conduct. She was a model for censorship (which is rather ironic in light of my broad and morally indiscriminate consumption of books now). I’m not sure quite why she had a distaste for the Wrinkle book – perhaps it was too science-fiction-y, but the fantasy of Lewis and Tolkien never scared her. Perhaps if I read it again I would know. It could have been a foul word, it could have been the lack of explicit Christian-ness about it, or it could been some hearsay about the author. I don’t think that my mother’s aversion to the book hindered me from liking it – although it might have made it more difficult to obtain and read. It might have been one of the books read by flashlight under the covers late at night – oh, my subversive childhood!

But of all the pieces that I’ve seen this past week, people usually focus solely on L’Engle’s fiction, on the books for children. Unlike most, I actually read some of her non-fiction as well. One of my favorites was her 1980 book Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art. It’s a quiet, measured examination of what it means to write narrative through the lens of the transcendent. In terms of topic, it’s reminiscent of Flannery O’Connor’s Mystery and Manners, but in terms of tone, no one can match the terse, acerbic voice of Flannery. No, in Walking on Water L’Engle simply leads the reader through an examination of her own work and a meditation on how to write well in light of a religious worldview. It’s worth a glimpse, if you’re into that type of thing.