Madeleine L'Engle

 

A Circle of Quiet, by Madeleine L’Engle.

“The Crosswicks Journal – Book 1”. “Set against the lush backdrop of Crosswicks, her family’s farmhouse in rural Connecticut, this deeply personal memoir details Madeleine L’Engle’s journey to find balance between her career as a Newbery Medal–winning author and her responsibilities as a wife, mother, teacher, and Christian. As she considers the roles that creativity, family, citizenship, and faith play in her life, L’Engle reveals the complexities behind the author whose works have long been cherished by children and adults alike. Written in simple, profound, and often humorous prose, A Circle of Quiet is an insightful woman’s elegant search for the meaning and purpose of her life. 1972.” – madeleinelengle.com. Like having a soothing, enlightening talk with the wise grandmother I never had.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Autobiography/Literature. Softcover.

The Summer of the Great-Grandmother, by Madeleine L’Engle.

The Crosswicks Journal – Book 2. “In the second memoir of her Crosswicks Journals, Madeleine L’Engle chronicles a season of extremes. Four generations of family have gathered at Crosswicks, her Connecticut farmhouse, to care for L’Engle’s ninety-year-old mother. As summer days fade to sleepless nights, her mother’s health rapidly declines and her once astute mind slips into senility. With poignant honesty, L’Engle describes the gifts and graces, as well as the painful emotional cost, of caring for the one who once cared for you. As she spends her days with a mother who barely resembles the competent and vigorous woman who bore and raised her, L’Engle delves into her memories, reflecting on the lives of the strong women in her family’s history. Evoking both personal experiences and universal themes, The Summer of the Great-Grandmother takes an unflinching look at diminishment and death, all the while celebrating the wonder of life. 1974.” – madeleinelengle.com. I have to say it helped prepare and motivate me for things to come. I tried to get Mom to read these books, hoping to introduce her to a cleanlier mentor than televangelists, but I don’t think she wanted to listen to a peer; she needed a master, and she couldn’t take another woman, not after what happened in her life.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Memoir. Autobiography. Softcover.

The Irrational Season, by Madeleine L’Engle.

The Crosswicks Journal – Book 3. “The Irrational Season follows the liturgical year from one Advent to the next, with L’Engle reflecting on the changing seasons in her own life as a writer, wife, mother, and global citizen. Unafraid to discuss controversial topics and address challenging questions, L’Engle writes from the heart in this compelling chronicle of her spiritual quest to renew and refresh her faith in an ever-changing world and her ever-changing personhood. 1977.” – madeleinelengle.com. “Madeleine L'Engle was more than a writer of "juvenile fiction." She was a novelist, poet, author of spiritual biographies, and commentator on the relationship of faith with creativity. To read her books is to see the difference between a Christian who writes books and a Christian author; the one forces the religion down into the work, the other raises the craft up into the Christianity. In the works of a Christian author the religion ennobles and empowers the writing, and the writing mediates and illuminates the religion, to the glory of both, and Madeleine L'Engle was a true Christian author. I came to regard her as a sort of spiritual mother, a female voice in counterpoint and contrast to the dry, skeptical, technically enlightening Ursula K. LeGuin, and in her devotion to the craft of writing an inheritor of Dorothy L. Sayers.” – Power of Babel.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Memoir. Autobiography. Softcover.

Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage, by Madeleine L’Engle.

“The Crosswicks Journals”. “As Newbery Medal winner Madeleine L’Engle describes a relationship characterized by compassion, respect, and growth, as well as challenge and conflict, she beautifully evokes the life she and her husband, actor Hugh Franklin, built and the family they cherished. Beginning with their very different childhoods, L’Engle chronicles the twists and turns that led two young artists to New York City in the 1940s, where they were both pursuing careers in theater. While working on a production of Anton Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard, they sparked a connection that would endure until Franklin’s death in 1986. L’Engle recalls years spent raising their children at Crosswicks, the Connecticut farmhouse that became an icon of family, and the support she and her husband drew from each other as artists struggling—separately and together—to find both professional and personal fulfillment. At once heartfelt and heartbreaking, Two-Part Invention is L’Engle’s most personal work—the revelation of a marriage and the exploration of intertwined lives inevitably marked by love and loss. 1988.” – madeleinelengle.com.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Memoir. Autobiography. Marriage. Softcover.

Trailing Clouds of Glory, by Madeleine L’Engle with Avery Brooke, Anthologist.

“Spiritual Values in Children’s Books”. “In a time when every effort is bent toward keeping the religious and the secular apart, Madeleine L'Engle shows us that secular children's books, like children themselves, comes, in Wordsworth's words, "trailing clouds of glory." Acclaimed as a novelist, beloved as a children's writer, inspiring as an essayist and poet, Madeleine L'Engle has now focused her creative eye on literature for and about boys and girls. She shows us, not subjects, but spiritual themes. Searching shelves of books old, new, and in between, anthologist Avery Brooke has applied her perspective as an experienced editor and critic, as well her spiritual sensitivity. L'Engle finds in the pages of these books expressions of the power of love, the courage to survive failure and death, the intuitive flash of spiritual awareness, blessings that come from beyond human gifts, the yearning for faith, the constant renewal of life, and an inner light.” – Goodreads.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Children’s Literature. Faith. Hardback.

Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, by Madeleine L’Engle.

“In this classic book, Madeleine L'Engle addresses the questions, What does it mean to be a Christian artist? and What is the relationship between faith and art? Through L'Engle's beautiful and insightful essay, readers will find themselves called to what the author views as the prime tasks of an artist: to listen, to remain aware, and to respond to creation through one's own art.” – Amazon. This copy is rather torn and repaired. And it is so good! I would recommend it to anyone who is thinking about writing, whether they are religious or not, because to write at all requires a great deal of faith, whether you realize it or not.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Writing. Faith. Softcover.

The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L’Engle, by Madeleine L’Engle. Foreword by Walter Wangerin, Jr.

An anthology of her poetry, which are most often meditations on God and faith and love, with lines cut to a certain length, incantatory, but poetry in the sense of “lines that don’t reach the edge of the page”, which isn’t my favorite kind of poetry. Still, much wisdom and a little music.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Poetry. Collection. Hardback.

Glimpses of Grace: Daily Thoughts and Reflections, by Madeleine L’Engle.

Selected readings from her works for every day of the year. “One of my treasured possessions is now my copy of Glimpses of Grace. I bought it used, at Hastings, and was surprised when I got it home to find that it was inscribed "To Jill Smith. Much Grace. Madeleine L'Engle." Three days later, I found out she had passed away. It was one of those odd synchronous happenings, that some people call chance, and some little operations of God. A small wave good-bye, touching those words is as close as ever I will ever come physically to one of my favorite writers.” – Power of Babel.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Daily Readings. Hardback.