It was a music more tangible than form or sight . . .
. . . It had essence and structure. It supported Meg more firmly than the arms of Aunt Beast. It seemed to travel with her, to sweep her aloft in the power of song, so that she was moving in glory among the stars, and for a moment she, too, felt that the words Darkness and Light had no meaning, and only this melody was real.*
A select number of books--perhaps five to seven at most--stand out in my memory as awe-inspiring, perspective-changing, or world-opening in my childhood. I read constantly as a kid, and I have strong memories of much of what I pored over, but there is a particular reserved place in my memory for those few really special ones--Island of the Blue Dolphins, Bridge to Terabithia (featured in another post, actually, that I started and have never finished; keep watching for it), and The Pigman, among others, and of course, of course, A Wrinkle in Time.
Reading A Wrinkle in Time provided me with one of my first experiences, if not my first experience, period, with the idea that it was OK--and maybe even wonderful--to be different, to be nonconforming, to be a Meg or a Charles Wallace, to not bounce the ball with perfect rhythm (if you're confused by that last one, read the book!). It was one of the first of anything--books, teachers, family--to open my mind to the possibility of things and places we can't see, things and places and truths we don't know exist; to show me the power of perspective; to make me aware of the silliness and superficiality of judging something or someone by appearance or assuming anything about someone's character, experiences, or capability before really knowing the person; to teach me about both the fragility and vulnerability and the strength and resilience of a person's mind.
I loved that book deeply, and the copy from my childhood still sits on my bookcase, with my full name scrawled on the inside cover in careful cursive. Ten years after I fell in love with the book, I passed on the love to my kid brother and watched him become just as captivated by the marvelous Madeleine L'Engle.
So it was with deep sadness this morning that I scanned over the topics in a series of mailing list messages from yesterday and saw "RIP" appended to the front of L'Engle's name. She lives on in the hearts, minds, and imagination of children and adults everywhere.
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*L'Engle, Wrinkle in Time (New York: Dell, 1973), p. 185.
3 comments:
i read that book not long ago. a couple years maybe. brad bought it for me, because i hadn't heard of it. i liked it. i also liked the pigman, but don't remember much of it... that one's been a while. :)
This was a great homage to the author of an awesome book. I haven't read it since I was a kid: I think many of these themes went right over my head! Sounds like time to revisit it.
L: Oh, I loved The Pigman, but it made me cry so much.
O: Thanks. :) Sometimes I don't even realize how a book affected me at the time until I think back and reflect on the experience years later. And of course, how old you are, how you've grown up, what you've been exposed to and experienced, and so on all contribute to how a book will impact you personally. Some of the ways in which I was influenced by A Wrinkle in Time were apparent to me then, as a child, but it took age and distance for me to see some of the other ways that it (in combination with and in addition to other books and influences) shaped me during childhood.
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