you must be the seed
I haven't even got time for the checking of the f-list today on account of putting off the internet in order to read all afternoon, visiting Leandra, and staying up late watching a Woody Guthrie documentary with my father. Oh, dear; eventually I am going to make up for all of this neglect, really. But I need to write this: you'll see.
When Mum and the siblings and I were at Goodwill on Saturday, we found a book by Madeleine L'Engle about her marriage, which neither Mum or I had read, but we love Madeleine L'Engle--I have for years, since I read A Wrinkle in Time at nine and went on to read other things; she's one of the only writers I know who can write about faith organically in a novel, organically and beautifully and eloquently, without it feeling like a bit of lace frill sewn on at the end. I don't think that people intend to write faith so badly, or intend to write it in the awkward way they often do; it's just that it's so difficult: I haven't managed to do it, and most people who do come across as telling a lesson and it's what people remember about their books, that they had Christianity in them. L'Engle isn't like that--she has metaphysical bits on Christianity in novels the way people often have metaphysics in novels, and it's so natural and true and poignant. And yet her books aren't unaccessable to non-Christians.
Which is all quite beside the point, actually. We bought the book. It's called Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage, and it documents Madeleine L'Engle's relationship with her husband Hugh, but the centre, the core of the story is Hugh's struggle with cancer much later in life--it's woven into the reflections on the early days of the relationship until it has become the absolute story. And it's so--beautiful and tragic and tender and wise. The book is. The thoughts, the ideas, the stories and pains and joys and how L'Engle writes about them and what she writes about them--it's the sort of book that one has to recover from afterwards; you come out of it slowly, blinking at the brightness of the light, and you are very, very quiet for a few minutes afterwards, because you don't want to leave it, and because you have so much to ponder and to understand. (This is why I like Madeleine L'Engle, by the way.) I sat very still, wanting to know that kind of love, and that kind of trust, and faith, and strength, and wanting to be able to make others feel them as if the sorrows and joys belonged to them--if I can't do that, then I can't be a writer. I took a walk. It's Spring, as you have no doubt heard, and I love early evening, all pale and sharp-smelling and quiet and still, so I walked around the neighbourhood in the chilly March air and thought, not just about what I'd read, but everything, everything that there was to think of, because this is what walks do. (I like that kind of solitude--it's very rich and full and intuitive and I hardly feel alone in it. It feels like being near to something, and I love my long bicycle rides--when they're not in abysmal weather!--when I can think and exist as much as I please so long as I watch for traffic. I can't quite express it. There is a sort of communion, perhaps with thought, perhaps with God; perhaps I am more open to everything.)
I don't know what it is that I am aiming to get to, in all of this verbosity, but this was one of those books, you know? It carves out a little space inside you and fits itself in.
wanderlightasked, a while back, about books that have changed your life. I meant to answer but didn't get round to it because I didn't know how to say it. I think that most books burrow inside of me and put down roots, but I can't always see the repercussions. Some are more important than others, sometimes because of what they mean--Patricia MacLachlan's Baby was already a very personal book to me, and then I found myself re-reading it when Baby Jabez died, and the thoughts in it made more sense than they had even before. And some books climb inside you and make themselves at home, carve yourself into a slightly different shape so that you fit into the world differently. You can't explain the difference, but you feel it (or smell it, or taste it--you could talk just as easily of those, because it's a sense, but it's not one of the ones we are used to). Sometimes you want to be more, greater, fuller, and you want God and people and love and joy and pain more closely than you thought you did before.
How does one do that, with only words? I want to know how. I want to reach into people and pull out words and set them in front of them: I want to reach into myself and pull out words and set them in front of people who have never seen me, but they recognise the words. I suppose I have to live first, gather up some experiences and knowledge along the way, because I can't write if I don't know about things. Perhaps, then, love itself is the key to art?
When Mum and the siblings and I were at Goodwill on Saturday, we found a book by Madeleine L'Engle about her marriage, which neither Mum or I had read, but we love Madeleine L'Engle--I have for years, since I read A Wrinkle in Time at nine and went on to read other things; she's one of the only writers I know who can write about faith organically in a novel, organically and beautifully and eloquently, without it feeling like a bit of lace frill sewn on at the end. I don't think that people intend to write faith so badly, or intend to write it in the awkward way they often do; it's just that it's so difficult: I haven't managed to do it, and most people who do come across as telling a lesson and it's what people remember about their books, that they had Christianity in them. L'Engle isn't like that--she has metaphysical bits on Christianity in novels the way people often have metaphysics in novels, and it's so natural and true and poignant. And yet her books aren't unaccessable to non-Christians.
Which is all quite beside the point, actually. We bought the book. It's called Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage, and it documents Madeleine L'Engle's relationship with her husband Hugh, but the centre, the core of the story is Hugh's struggle with cancer much later in life--it's woven into the reflections on the early days of the relationship until it has become the absolute story. And it's so--beautiful and tragic and tender and wise. The book is. The thoughts, the ideas, the stories and pains and joys and how L'Engle writes about them and what she writes about them--it's the sort of book that one has to recover from afterwards; you come out of it slowly, blinking at the brightness of the light, and you are very, very quiet for a few minutes afterwards, because you don't want to leave it, and because you have so much to ponder and to understand. (This is why I like Madeleine L'Engle, by the way.) I sat very still, wanting to know that kind of love, and that kind of trust, and faith, and strength, and wanting to be able to make others feel them as if the sorrows and joys belonged to them--if I can't do that, then I can't be a writer. I took a walk. It's Spring, as you have no doubt heard, and I love early evening, all pale and sharp-smelling and quiet and still, so I walked around the neighbourhood in the chilly March air and thought, not just about what I'd read, but everything, everything that there was to think of, because this is what walks do. (I like that kind of solitude--it's very rich and full and intuitive and I hardly feel alone in it. It feels like being near to something, and I love my long bicycle rides--when they're not in abysmal weather!--when I can think and exist as much as I please so long as I watch for traffic. I can't quite express it. There is a sort of communion, perhaps with thought, perhaps with God; perhaps I am more open to everything.)
I don't know what it is that I am aiming to get to, in all of this verbosity, but this was one of those books, you know? It carves out a little space inside you and fits itself in.
wanderlightasked, a while back, about books that have changed your life. I meant to answer but didn't get round to it because I didn't know how to say it. I think that most books burrow inside of me and put down roots, but I can't always see the repercussions. Some are more important than others, sometimes because of what they mean--Patricia MacLachlan's Baby was already a very personal book to me, and then I found myself re-reading it when Baby Jabez died, and the thoughts in it made more sense than they had even before. And some books climb inside you and make themselves at home, carve yourself into a slightly different shape so that you fit into the world differently. You can't explain the difference, but you feel it (or smell it, or taste it--you could talk just as easily of those, because it's a sense, but it's not one of the ones we are used to). Sometimes you want to be more, greater, fuller, and you want God and people and love and joy and pain more closely than you thought you did before.
How does one do that, with only words? I want to know how. I want to reach into people and pull out words and set them in front of them: I want to reach into myself and pull out words and set them in front of people who have never seen me, but they recognise the words. I suppose I have to live first, gather up some experiences and knowledge along the way, because I can't write if I don't know about things. Perhaps, then, love itself is the key to art?